Wall Street Potholes Quotes

“I often point out to hedge fund proponents that their industry used to claim it was targeting absolute returns, with the promise that they'd make money over any reasonably long holding period and were uncorrelated with other major asset classes such as stocks or bonds. The 2008 crash showed how unattainable this was, and hedge fund proponents quietly adopted different descriptions of their objectives. These included generating attractive Relative Returns, and more recently when even this more modest objective proved to be beyond their collective ability the term Uncorrelated Returns gained favor. Since hedge funds have in recent years been worse than just about anything else it's been a good choice.”
― Simon A. Lack, Wall Street Potholes: Insights from Top Money Managers on Avoiding Dangerous Products

“Some public pension plans are responding to the continued disappointing returns. The California Public Sector Retirement System (CalPERS) is often regarded as a thought leader among other pension funds, and with over $300 billion in assets it is one of the largest institutional investors in the world. In September 2014 it announced (CalPERS 2014) the elimination of hedge funds from its portfolio, concluding that the cost of investing wasn't justified by the returns. One interesting disclosure was that in the most recent fiscal year through June 2014, CalPERS had paid $135 million in fees on a $4 billion portfolio that earned 7.1%. The approximately $280 million in investment returns ($4 billion × 7.1%) means that for every $2 in returns, it paid away a third dollar in fees. Of the gross returns (i.e., before fees), two-thirds went to CalPERS and one-third to the hedge fund managers. When you consider that it's possible to invest in equity index funds for less than 0.1%, this division of investment profits between the provider of capital and the managers must have appeared as absurd to CalPERS as it does to everyone else.”
― Simon A. Lack, Wall Street Potholes: Insights from Top Money Managers on Avoiding Dangerous Products

“The obvious response to this is that the history of investing is littered with episodes of capital flowing too readily to areas that ultimately prove poorly considered. It's not that every successful investment idea eventually blows itself up, but every one that does blow up was preceded by a thoughtless scamper to join the crowd. Early, smart money is followed by the less astute. So we'll put financial success for hedge fund promoters in the category of dubious support for the notion that a bigger hedge fund industry is better.”
― Simon A. Lack, Wall Street Potholes: Insights from Top Money Managers on Avoiding Dangerous Products

“I once had a foreign exchange trader who worked for me who was an unabashed chartist. He truly believed that all the information you needed was reflected in the past history of a currency. Now it's true there can be less to consider in trading currencies than individual equities, since at least for developed country currencies it's typically not necessary to pore over their financial statements every quarter. And in my experience, currencies do exhibit sustainable trends more reliably than, say, bonds or commodities. Imbalances caused by, for example, interest rate differentials that favor one currency over another (by making it more profitable to invest in the higher-yielding one) can persist for years. Of course, another appeal of charting can be that it provides a convenient excuse to avoid having to analyze financial statements or other fundamental data. Technical analysts take their work seriously and apply themselves to it diligently, but it's also possible for a part-time technician to do his market analysis in ten minutes over coffee and a bagel. This can create the false illusion of being a very efficient worker. The FX trader I mentioned was quite happy to engage in an experiment whereby he did the trades recommended by our in-house market technician. Both shared the same commitment to charts as an under-appreciated path to market success, a belief clearly at odds with the in-house technician's avoidance of trading any actual positions so as to provide empirical proof of his insights with trading profits. When challenged, he invariably countered that managing trading positions would challenge his objectivity, as if holding a losing position would induce him to continue recommending it in spite of the chart's contrary insight. But then, why hold a losing position if it's not what the chart said? I always found debating such tortured logic a brief but entertaining use of time when lining up to get lunch in the trader's cafeteria. To the surprise of my FX trader if not to me, the technical analysis trading account was unprofitable. In explaining the result, my Kool-Aid drinking trader even accepted partial responsibility for at times misinterpreting the very information he was analyzing. It was along the lines of that he ought to have recognized the type of pattern that was evolving but stupidly interpreted the wrong shape. It was almost as if the results were not the result of the faulty religion but of the less than completely faithful practice of one of its adherents. So what use to a profit-oriented trading room is a fully committed chartist who can't be trusted even to follow the charts? At this stage I must confess that we had found ourselves in this position as a last-ditch effort on my part to salvage some profitability out of a trader I'd hired who had to this point been consistently losing money. His own market views expressed in the form of trading positions had been singularly unprofitable, so all that remained was to see how he did with somebody else's views. The experiment wasn't just intended to provide a “live ammunition” record of our in-house technician's market insights, it was my last best effort to prove that my recent hiring decision hadn't been a bad one. Sadly, his failure confirmed my earlier one and I had to fire him. All was not lost though, because he was able to transfer his unsuccessful experience as a proprietary trader into a new business advising clients on their hedge fund investments.”
― Simon A. Lack, Wall Street Potholes: Insights from Top Money Managers on Avoiding Dangerous Products

“There's a saying on Wall Street that certain investments are sold, not bought, in that they require a salesman to push them on a willing investor rather than the buyer actively seeking them out. This would certainly apply to non-traded REITS. Because the first question any investor, or for that matter well-intentioned advisor, should ask before considering non-traded REITs is how the sector is likely to perform going forward. Asset allocation, the choice of how much an investor should put in stocks, investment grade bonds, REITs, high-yield bonds, commodities, or any other asset class generally drives 80% to 90% of the investor's overall return.”
― Simon A. Lack, Wall Street Potholes: Insights from Top Money Managers on Avoiding Dangerous Products