Category Archives: Money Management
Legal Insider Trading Biotech
Let’s say a biotech CEO learns that, in two days, her company is going to announce clinical results that will surely boost its stock price. She can’t legally buy up a bunch of the company’s shares right then — that would be the bad kind of insider trading — but she can cancel a scheduled 10b5-1 sale to avoid dumping stock just before its price soars.
https://www.statnews.com/2016/08/08/insider-trading-biotech/
Tax Tips
When you get rich you’re going to need these tips. Than you can donate to the site!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-04-17/how-to-pay-no-taxes-10-strategies-used-by-the-rich
Edit: Related to taxes, an impressive example of the power of compounding and deferred taxes:
Imagine that Berkshire had only $1, which we put in a security that doubled by year-end and was then sold. Imagine further that we used the after-tax proceeds to repeat this process in each of the next 19 years, scoring a double each time. At the end of the 20 years, the 34% capital gains tax that we would have paid on the profits from each sale would have delivered about $13,000 to the government and we would be left with about $25,250. Not bad. If, however, we made a single fantastic investment that itself doubled 20 times during the 20 years, our dollar would grow to $1,048,576. Were we then to cash out, we would pay a 34% tax of roughly $356,500 and be left with about $692,000.
Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3438006-berkshire-hathaway-importance-deferred-taxes
DrawDown Fever
Everyone, everywhere has no tolerance for draw down. More than rate of return, drawdown seems to be the ultimate optimization metric. “If I reduce the drawdown I can increase the leverage and viola!” This usually ends badly. I love this article because it shows that no matter who the manager is or what the strategy is, drawdowns are inevitable. Institutions manage money because they are supposed to be more sophisticated, only to do exactly what retail does (panic at the wrong time) and charge you a nice fee for it.
https://blog.thinknewfound.com/2016/02/god-buffett-three-oenophiles/
Interview with MITIMco
Insight into the process used by institutional asset allocator, the MIT Investment Management company. Some highlights I found interesting:
- They look for younger emerging managers and focus on their process over quantitative returns.
- Looking for evidence of those ‘buzzwords’ like discipline and patience. Example being identifying great business and waiting four years to invest.
- Turning away capital
- LT business planning
- Incentives aligned with shareholders. In one case, paying expenses instead of flat management fee
- An environment that fosters ‘buzzwords’ like discipline, patience, etc
- Generalists for the most part but invests in specialists when needed.
Worth a read! Unfortunately these guys are probably in the minority of asset allocators. If the goal is to have a successful asset management business, it likely comes back to raising assets and sales/marketing.
Japanese Day Trader
This is another trading tale I’ve heard over the years, Japanese day traders that make millions that started off with a huge fat finger fade trade in J-Com. Trades a momentum strategy, treats trading like a video game rather than an intellectual endeavor.
This seems to be a new guy but there’s all kinds of youtube videos and interviews if you look hard enough on the other guy mentioned BNF. Here’s a few:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LEmIOR521o#t=123
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La-WIYNjgoY
“All he does is eat Ramen and pick winners.”
Book on Hedge Fund Capital Raising
I know a ton of money managers. Most are very good. I would hope I am included in that. But access to capital is still difficult. Here’s a free book on the subject from a firm that claims $2B in Assets Raised. Not endorsing it and it seems pretty obvious but can’t beat the price.
Click to access Raising_Institutional_Capital-Fight_Smarter.pdf
Support the Good Guys
Great read and audio on FED “Oversight” of banks with emphasis on Goldman Sachs
Certus Bank Fast One on Wall Street Elite
The vision started at Pancake house and greased with political contributions, many gems:
“Certus was billed $194 an hour by ICS, or a total of nearly $146,000, for the services of Bryan Williams between June and August of 2011. Bryan Williams is the son of Certus founder Charles Williams and had graduated from North Carolina State University the previous year.”
“In total, Certus’ expenses of $1.69 per dollar of revenue were far in excess of the 65 cent average for banks with $1 billion to $10 billion in assets.”
The two men had been drawn together by religious faith and an ambition to build a bank that they’d long discussed over Saturday breakfasts at the Original Pancake House in Charlotte,
The four founders made a total of $45,000 in political contributions between 2010 and 2013, including $10,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2012 and $10,000 for the 2012 reelection campaign of Rep. Maxine Waters, lead Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. (See table, “Political Contributions.”)
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/179_60/certus-dream-team-gets-its-wake-up-call-1066533-1.html
Peer to Peer Lending Hedge Fund
I’ve kicked around the idea with a buddy but we thought the margins were too slim and probably couldn’t find enough good quality loans. We’re probably wrong and this will be the next big thing.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-04/peer-to-peer-lending-blogger-turns-investor.html
LargeCapLinks 