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Activist Funds In Momo Clothing (And Soon To Be, Returns)
Ah, memory. It enjoys playing such tricks on investors as making them believe they can make money by chasing flawed strategies, over and over. Three years ago, it was activism (via UBS Activist Partners, LLC and other unsightly mechanisms), now it is momos. Alas, just as the case in question indicated that UBS clients and their money were soon parted, we now start the clock on how long it is before the brilliantly executing yet totally speculative and completely fundamentally unjustified, momentum chasing strategies collapse in flames that will easily rival if not surpass the Activist pyre.
As a reminder, 3 years ago UBS was gung-ho on getting its clients who had no clue what to do with their excess cash, into such "stellar" funds as:
- Cevian
- Chapman Capital
- Harbinger
- Icahn
- Pardus
- Pershing Square
- Steel Partners
- Children's Investment Fund
Maybe it is time for a follow up presentation from UBS, disclosing the massive losses that any investors who were foolish enough to throw their money at UBS Activist Partners, LLC have suffered since 2006. Then take that, multiply by 2, and that's where momo fund returns will be by September 2011.
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Try to scroll down in the Appendix and take a closer look at how they calculate the performance of the individual funds. They take a snap-shot of their performance (ranging from few months to a few years). Besides they magically stop showing performance of the funds after October 2006.
I somehow feel that this should be illegal. However those stupid enough to invest in these funds should know better or else it is about time to learn a lesson from the markets.
Are you questioning AIMA Performance Reporting standards?
I somehow feel that this should be illegal. However those stupid enough to invest in these funds should know better or else it is about time to learn a lesson from the markets.
---------
Not so fast. If momo trading can recapitalize the banks at the expense of dumb money, it is basically an efficient and effective tax on stupidity. If we are stuck recapitalizing the banks because politicians don't have the balls to let them fail, I'd rather do it with a tax on stupidity than with inflation or a tax on anything else.
You'll get both...
Economic Darwinism for those with over $10MM to invest... hmmm let me think...
I love it! ... And since they do not include your house in the $10 MM... compassionate as well.
pure P.T. Barnum!
The business of telling HNW individuals and institutions that you are NOT dazzled by shiny objects, when in fact you are remains a financial services business model that has yet to be eradicated from the business landscape.
It's amazing how these investors keep running
through the rye.
#61624,
;-)
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
Sometimes ya just gotta let em fall or they will never learn.
some info on Pershing Square
http://www.marketfolly.com/2009/07/bill-ackmans-pershing-square-profile....
and this which lists their holding
http://www.mffais.com/124990
and a list of best and worst performing Hedge Funds in 2009
http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2009/08/the_best-_and_worst-performing.php
http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2009/08/the_best-_and_worst-performing.php
and this headline:
2009 Hedge Fund ReturnsFirst Half 2009 Hedge Fund Returns are 10-Year Best
http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2009/07/2009-hedge-fund-returns.html
momentum chasing morons are like the investment trusts in the late 1920's. Leverage ponzi schemes designed for quick hit and run profits by those who run the funds with general public absorbing all the risks and loses when it blows up.
I'm F-ing sick of it all. I'd quit the business if could.
This goes into my "Top 10 Laugh" bucket for the Labor Day weekend. It sure has been a beauty!!
I remember UBS shopping this GARBAGE a few years back. UBS are swine, getting what they deserve.
Telegraph Economics Headline Today:
"Barack Obama accused of making 'Depression' mistakes
Barack Obama is committing the same mistakes made by policymakers during the Great Depression, according to a new study endorsed by Nobel laureate James Buchanan. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6147211/Barack-Obama-accuse...
Sadly 1988 is now considered vintage. This "vintage" interview with Ron Paul remains exceedingly timely. The program starts with a piece on the Regan/Bush "October Suprises" that still haven't been covered by the major media outlets.
http://media.abovetopsecret.com/media/3400/Ron_Paul_The_American_Power_E...
"new currency needed to fix broken confidence game"
Wish I could make this shit up.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSp9VoPeHquI
I would like to see something written by TD about the new plan to make retirement contribution automatic instead of looked for by individuals. Knowing how people are careless about their finances,most probably the contribution is going to increase,and go to mutual fund run by the usual incompetent managers who are usually sitting ducks when the next implosion time comes. So this way, the theater will be set for more money to be transferred.
Can someone kindly explain to me exactly why you believe that momentum chasing is doomed to failure? All I see in the original post and the follow-up comments are scorn. I would love to understand why such scorn is warranted.
Perhaps I'm a noob, but I don't understand the difference between momentum-chasing and high-frequency trading, the latter of which seems to have done quite well for many.
If intelligent speculation is such a bad strategy, why is Goldman Sachs doing so well? Yeah, OK, they're cheating like bandits with flash trading and Sigma X, but still -- explain how this is so different from what's helped make Goldman so successful.
I'm not arguing a position here, only asking for explanation.
I'll take a stab at it. The current market is rigged, it is a rigged casino, where tried and true fundamental and/or technical analysis is rendered if not useless close to it. There are those who want to see the markets return to a more normal state, with only a modicum of corruption, illegal insider gaming, etc. You know , the old days.
It would be nice to P/E's in double digits once again, and not having every buyside trade rely on finding a greater fool.
Believe it or not, market activity was for the most part truly investing, not speculation- there is/was an an actual difference.
Well, yes, I don't doubt that fundamentals and old-school technical trading have both been rendered useless.
But if the market has been taken over by speculative algorithms and quantitative trading, why does it follow that speculative algorithms and quantitative trading can't work?
It seems to me that it only fails if:
-Too many players use the exact same algorithm. Given how many algorithms are out there and how little sharing there generally is, this is extremely unlikely to happen.
-The algorithms push the market too far in one direction for too long. Also extremely unlikely to happen.
Seriously, folks. I just need ONE GOOD ARGUMENT as to why momentum trading is doomed to failure. Or if it is doomed to failure, tell me when, and why I shouldn't use momentum trading up to that point.
Okay; momentum trading relies on an unrealistic set of valuations or better put no set of valuations. That's to say, it's great on the way up but has a tendency to quickly overvalue assets and result in momentum based meltdowns. Now if you don't mind being suceptible to massive gyrations in the total value of your portfolio then it's fine, but the truth is most people don't have the capital or the means to participate in the market in this fashion and end up being stuck two steps behind the momentum and HFT's.
We can get into the advantages or disadvantages this offers institutions and retail buyers/sellers but at the end of the day it can't work because of the temporary nature momentum entails. All of this predicates a lot of intra day volatitliy which is percursor to a crash, if a stock with a market cap of (for examples sake) 10 billion can be pushed up or down 10,15,25 percent in a day with less than 100m dollars you've got a game of hot potato and nothing more.
You say algo's can't push the market too far in one direction, is that not the principle of momentum? To keep pushing further and further... let em rip! It's not unlikely look at how quickly momentum trading pushed the marketplace down back in Oct., that wasn't just a recalculation of stock valuations based on future conditions, it was a lot of momentum and here we are gunning in the other direction.
Bottom line, momentum and HFT distort reality in such a way that real valuations are obscured but to a few traders who know which stocks will be gunned up/down and which ones won't. This puts a large percentage of the population at a significant disadvantage when trying to plan for retirement or map out a useful 401k, IRA, pension plan etc.
> momentum trading relies on an unrealistic set of valuations or better put no set of valuations
Yes, but the current market doesn't care, does it? If the market doesn't care, why should I? If I keep telling the market it should care and it doesn't, I'm tilting at windmills.
> but the truth is most people don't have the capital or the means to participate in the market
> in this fashion and end up being stuck two steps behind the momentum and HFT'
Yes, but again, the question is about high-frequency trading and momentum chasing, not ordinary people.
I am just such an investor who found himself at the sharp end of the algo's. I decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, and am now doing HFT myself.
> You say algo's can't push the market too far in one direction, is that not the principle of momentum?
Not saying they can't, just that they're unlikely to do so for too long. They run out of steam on the upside and have to chase the downside for a while.
> This puts a large percentage of the population at a significant disadvantage when
> trying to plan for retirement or map out a useful 401k, IRA, pension plan etc.
I couldn't agree more. But again, that's not the argument. The question is not whether momo trading and HFT are moral and ethical and available to the common investor, but whether they can work sustainably.
Momentum trading works very profitably if: 1) you have the discipline to follow your trading rules. 2) You stay glued to your computer. 3) You don't hold over-night positions.
Right, because momentum can take you up or down when you are not looking. Nothing new here.
And value or growth investing can't?
What does the word momentum mean?
"if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"
A nifty piece of indoctrination from our childhood.
Makes sure that if we are clever enough to see through the status quo that we aren't stupid enough to try to change it.
You know, why ruin it for everyone, now that you have gotten yourself admission to the game!
Of course, we should just keep trying to beat 'em, but when they have indoctrinated you since age 4 the odds are slightly stacked against you.
You're right, Anonymous. Why should I bother trying to make money? That surely won't help me effect change.
Instead, I should lose every penny I own so I can end up living in a cardboard box on the streetcorner with my family, and be reduced to giving oral sex in the Olive Garden bathroom to get enough money for food, so that I can righteously shake my fist in the air at Wall Street, satisfied with knowing that although my children wear clothing made out of cardboard, I've done what's morally right and proper.
I have met many a self-righteous homeless person who, without a pot to piss in, will tell me how lucky they are to not be beholden to the Man. Of course, they mention nothing about how they are in fact beholden to ringworm and the 4 seasons. But, from atop their steaming sewer grate, they can proclaim victory.
Oh and why you shouldn't use it up to that point? well unless you know exactly where that 'point is' your ass can get wiped out if you aren't in front of your terminal when it happens. look at the sugar market friday, if you bought a contract at roughly 850, by 855 you would be getting a margin call. And this is a market that has severe fundamental problems, missing production, supply side issues and the market is being gunned up and down 10% in a few days.
> well unless you know exactly where that 'point is' your ass can get wiped out if you
> aren't in front of your terminal when it happens.
Don't price patterns usually signal ahead of time before such wipeouts occur, and don't trailing stops and other kinds of stop limits usually mitigate the damage from wipeouts?
Particularly if you trade on a short time frame (less than a day), you're likely to get out safely unless the entire market has a sudden heart attack in the middle of the day.
Again, I'm specifically referring to algorithmic trading. Such trading generally does not require you to be in front of your terminal at all.
That's why I used sugar as my example, at 850et everything was fine, then at pit sell order of 12k contracts pushed the market down, electronic trading didn't stand a chance, and in fact if you review minute by minute the next electronic price came through nearly 100 ticks away. So much for stop or a stop limit order. It's a scenario that doesn't happen often but when it does it totally wipes out your system and you can't do anything about it.
I should also add it depends on the exchange too, ICE won't honor stop limit orders if a price gaps outside the order, it's then regarded as broker rejected. ICE doesn't have stop orders only stop limits.
Let me also say if you want to do it, by all means go for it. I just don't think that it adds anything useful to the marketplace and instead magnifies flaws of most traders most of the time. Personally it's not how I care to spend my time, that said I do spend a fair amount of time glued to a screen regardless.
Momentum trading works if you pay extremely close attention to the markets. But a fund with other people's money run by young graduates working 9 to 5 and hitting the bars each night - not the same care and focus.
Plus the current manipulation will see these funds as fodder for their games.
I'm no expert, but I've come to believe that HFT and momos require market volatility to be effective. Major traders in fact trigger and amplify volatility for the sole purpose of milking the cream of that disturbance as profit.
The good.
- It's the next big profit bandwagon to jump on.
- For now, the too-big-to-fail crowd are profiting.
The bad
- Planned volatility for the sole purpose of profit.
- Volatility is historically a precursor of failure, not recovery.
- Small investors, pensions, etc. can't react quickly enough so they largely pay the cost in lowered absolute returns.
- It's destroyed the connection between price and value in the market. Paul Wilmott would suggest investors to bet on large market swings, volatility.
The ugly
- A major foundation of classic capitalism is subverted.
- The market is no longer satisfactory for the average 50 million citizens who would invest their dollars and pennies into nation building capital growth enterprises.
- Valid capital enterprise is probably at higher risk.
- My guess is that Anne Rand would disapprove of it.
Yes, and the more folks use momo trading, the more volatility there is, and the more effective momo trading becomes. So it actually becomes a positive feedback loop. In the long run, I'm concerned about explosion of volatility if momentum trading becomes too successful.
I agree that Ayn Rand would disapprove. It really shows what capitalism has become -- a perfectly capable individual who could be holding a good job and contributing something positive to society, forced to adopt HFT, simply because there's no way for me to succeed in the market without it.
The momo stuff simply work until it doesn't.
My sense is that if you can understand the dynamics, are confident enough that your risk control works, and you don't mind risking capital... well, go for it.
Momo strategies have worked in the past... no doubt about that. Those strategies have unwound very quickly, too. The difference I see this time is the influence/concentration of HFT. Perhaps the heat mapping will allow for greater opportunity. Or perhaps, there will be a greater possibility of investors holding the bag.
This seems like one of those markets there is always someone (with volume) who knows a whole lot more than I do. I could chase everytime someone else pushes the heat map button, but I'm not confident I can turn out ahead consistently.
I'll stick with what I understand... and realize I cannot play this game right now.
the market has always been a 'greater fool' game. if you don't want to play that then buy fixed income instruments.
If you are sophisticated enough to bet on the relative speed of stocks, momo might be for you. If you aren't that sophisticated, you are basically playing chicken with the market; everyone thinks they are smart enough to sell before everyone else, but most people don't.
Anyone have the returns on these funds since 2006? Would love to see them, please post if you have them. Thanks.
Perhsing Square up to December 31, 2008
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11714767/Pershing-Square-2008-Annual-Report
and for h1 2009
Thanks Anon. Very slick annual report there. Looks like something from Guthy-Renker.
http://www.guthy-renker.com/
America in Jeopardy
ZerO: Alex I'll take American Proctology for $1000
Alex: The answer is... Pound your anus full of broken glass.
ZerO: Ummm... tough one Alex... uh... What is how do you circumcize an investment banker?
Alex: We'll accept that answer!
The Economic Recovery Team
Larry,Timmy and Ben...
http://davepear.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/the-three-stooges-football.jpg
brilliant
Thanks... I think you were the only one who got it...
WTF is going on ZH ? Where are you ?
Was it anus or proctology?
LOLWUT ?????+
Sorry didn't get the LOLWUT code Cheeky...
I'm kinda slow sometimes...
Jeopardy is an American game show where the host gives you the answer first and you must create the question phrased in a question...
(Simply said... these guy are fucking us up the ass so they get circumcized in the process!)
Read it again!
i took me a while to get the joke; but then i ROFLMAO'd.
Come on CB, give 'em a break. If anyone can understand disappearing for a few days it's certainly you.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
good speech IMHO
What exactly does that pathetic failure of a president and his manipulative speech to schoolchildren have to do with momentum trading?
+ one million Missing_Link
that man is an utter failure in every single aspect of his life; every single one.
++++
well he did say to buy stocks in march, he's a natural in that respect
Yes, and then the TBTF banks pour the bailout money he gave them right into the stock market to prop it up.
Natural my ass.
exactly.
i mean he could play hardball with the banks but wouldn't that be free market interference?
what's going on now is free market support.
what was the right thing to do, nationalize citi and sell off its parts????
it's easy to be a prophet when you're preaching a self-fulfilling prophecy
I posted the speech link - and I really was expecting some sort of partisan rant (I suspect the first draft was just that) but this one from my parsing of the words passes the smell test. Having said that the very fact that he is exposing young and impressionable minds to his rhetoric (medium is the message) does smack of an extension of the Obama personality cult. But Bush spoke to the kids as well - and what did that do? I think they all ended up here.
PS the one comment related to community organizations smells just a little
Yes, but really. What does it have to do with the topic at hand, i.e. momentum trading?
topic at hand is stale - no data provided in lead post - the data I posted suggests the momo guys are holding their own - perhaps not at Halbower's level but still I'm not sure it's time for a dirge
Oh god he's gonna indoctrinate the kids with this "stay in school" bullshit just like their parents and the conservatives always said!
Oh no!!!!
*Jumps out of window*
Are you sure this is not an old document? Those dated returns in the appendix hint that this is an old 'book.'
I think the intent was for it to be an old (as in original) document/prospectus - filled with promises of endless riches
This market is unplay-able. There is nothing worth buying, and shorting will get me wiped out. I will just wait for the next crisis to break out. This feels like an unwritten chapter from "State of Fear".
This problem is intended to determine if you are a machine- or not sufficiently intelligent (or determined) to participate at Zero Hedge.
No. Something will go up tomorrow, and something else will go down. If you don't know what they are, it doesn't mean the market is unplayable. It means you're playing it wrong.
Paging Phil Gramm.
I cannot believe you are going to let Mr. Durden get away with this trashing of UBS. Wendy can handle the niceties with your good friend Sen. McCain and some of her former Enron board members while you let this fight club guy know where the rubber meets the road.
What will prevent momos from chasing best short performers when market will turn to the downside?
Circle in on active put buying in a newly established downtrend, wait for short volume and there you have a flood of momos shorting the same stock.
Is today some sort of a holiday in the US; or is Tyler ape-shit drunk somewhere deep-throating a 5000 $ whore and unable to post ( just asking don't flag me bro )
Labor Day in the USA cheek. Want good laugh? go to huffingtonpost and check the headline on Obama's big Labor Day speech....he wants a new economy that is basically in direct contradiction of what his admin is doing now.
I'm not making this shit up and it is true that life is stranger than fiction.
oh; didn't know that Deadhead; well; happy labour day 'Mericans !1 Yes i have read that article and i could not fucking believe that he can say the things he said in that speech. A fucking hypocrite he is. And the comments beneath the article; completely insane; fucking sheep; nothing else; they deserve what is coming for them.
must be a left winger huffposter on here as they junked ya, lol!
truth be told, i'm not sure Obama really understands what his summers, geithner, bernanke crew is really up to. or, he understands and is just going to let them kick the can down the road further as far as our debt induced economic fiasco continues along with policies that, well, are kinda the same as what got us here in the first place. maybe when our FHA implodes they'll realize that their approach to housing in the u.s.a is a failure.
one other thing...bloomberg article today on greenspan's remarks in Mumbai...it's absolutely a laugher. that alan is a real character. he seems to have forgotten that the things he recommends now should have been done when he was Fed honcho.
Deadhead; im sure he's just there for the cameras and to sign the documents; nothing more; nothing else; in my eyes he's presidency is like from a Hollywood movie when a community organizer decides to run for president. A pathetic joke on democracy.And when there's no teleprompters around him; he studders like Hank Paulson on mescaline.
EDIT: wow! thanks for the flag you HoffPost, left-wing morons
Scroll up buddy...
CB - sadly I believe your assesment to be correct, regardless of his own orientation he is a puppet president - but which president was not a puppet of the banks and special interests?
on a separate note Denninger is worth a visit today
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1415-Labor-Day-Musings-Part-...
but which president was not a puppet of the banks and special interests?
Kennedy.
Check out Executive Order 11110 Cheeky!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3026543/Executive-Order-11110
thanks man; but have it already stored on my hard disc for years now; and that i my main reason for stating that Kennedy was the most " cleanest " of all 20th century US presidents; with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt and in historical terms i put him in the domain of Andrew Jackson who is for me the greatest American president.
CB, i 100% agree with you on Kennedy. The only reason that the Cuban missile crisis did not escalate to full blown WWIII is because Kennedy was the "cleanest".
I also believe that is why he was killed (and also why RFK was killed)
The horror is today, Kennedy would never have been elected, because of his extracurricular activities.
Buy hey we got hope, right?
That and the actions of the soviet submarine second with a nuclear tipped torpedo in the tube ready to fire...
This is how close the world was to total destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasiliy_Arkhipov
The world owes a debt of gratitude to someone most people outside of Cheeky and me have never even heard of:
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov
great find ZerOhead, and this guy is also worth mentioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
We are all lucky to be alive Cheeky... but how long is our luck going to hold out for?
(rhetorical)
i agree with you CB, it takes balls to be "clean". it would be nice if all presidents starting with this one and going forward were given a set of truck nuts.
http://www.thatsnutz.com/truck-nuts-c-65.html
I guess a queston might be: Did JFK rise to greatness or arrive that way?
In fact if you replaced Washington with Kennedy pretty much all the lower most widely ciruclated bills would have bank killer presidents. Which is kind of ironic. It's like the bank puts them out as wanted posters. LOL It should say on there the president pictured on this bill died trying to make sure you didn't use money from a private central bank.
.....yes i still have both my wings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKOelNS1gLY
one daze at a time my sweet GeeZues
Yes, i know you have been waiting for me to deliver you the linkz, but i work on my time, not yours, always remember that!
Egad the first paragraph:
"President Barack Obama declared Monday that modern benefits like paid leave, minimum wage and Social Security "all bear the union label,"
I will give you the fricking union label. I have a relative who is disabled by a stroke and cannot collect social security disability. They have been delayed for months and had to go to an attorney. The paperwork and runaround is unreal. In another town there are three attorney practices within a mile who simply specialize in social security disability. Another relative lost 10 years of benefits because of an undocumented death. The Social security administration had documentation of the death,but would not provide it true catch 22.
They want to have a public option for health care. Can you imagine the fiasco that will be? No one will get paid. Doctors and hospitals all will get stiffed. The patient will become stiff. They will demand all union workers in healthcare and hospitals. The lawyers will have a field day working to collect claims that should have been paid by all the incompetent government employee unions. The union workers will ignore the needs of patients to attend union meetings and get dinner, and do online shopping.
Obama is both mentally deficient and socially ignorant. He has never lived with anyone who had a job. I doubt if he has even met one, other than those in finance, and none of them work, although they have a job.
Here you go from the SEIU bylaws:
We must organize unorganized Healthcare workers, extending to them the gains of unionism while securing control over the Healthcare industry.
http://www.seiuhealthcaremi.org/assets/assetcontent/c30ad09d-58bd-4a88-8...
Wonder how much money will be in the Democrat politician's campaign kitty?
Don't flag me bro? That's the blogger version of "Don't taze me bro". That is way to clever for a holiday.
Ha ha ha!
I'm sure you realize those two things are not mutually exclusive, Cheekster?
And now I can't get this image of the gang that comprises the TD nom de plume all shoving all their shlongs down some poor, well rich, working girl's moneymaker.
CB, that is Thursday night in NY.
Long weekends are for quality family time.
My guess is he is working on an exclusive with Sergey Aleynikov (who is out and about).
Alas, we should all have learned by now, Tyler is always working.
Q. What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
A. My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Q. The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
A. I was misinformed.
"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"
....potential benefits
Tyler, does not the document say private and confidential? You just enjoy your mischief to much...:=)
Potential benefits of investing is UBS Activist Partners includes
*past performance is not indicative of future results (Tyler, this address what you have mentioned above)
Now thought, it looks to me, they have decisive intentions this time around
OK Tyler, i will agree with you as to the past performance, but may be this time around they have the surgeons to handle the slice and dice?
This said, this fancy booklet would not nett my tens. But i did enjoy the read.... Activist Investor you say????