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Ira Sohn 1 Year Post-Mortem: Absolutely Abysmal

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Today begins the 17th annual pilgrimage of hedge-funders near and far to the Ira Sohn conference, where some of the "best and brightest" share their top picks with everyone else in an attempt to generate a buying (or shorting) frenzy and more hedge fund hotel traps. Sadly, this is what to many passes for alpha these days. Yet does the Ira Sohn conference actually lead to any outperformance? Well, Absolute Return has compiled the 1 year return of the recommended investments from last year's conference. The results are absolutely abysmal. Which makes us wonder if the time of groupthink has peaked, and instead the time to fade absolutely everything to come out of such conferences, where analysts pretend to do homework by piggybacking on others' often times very, very wrong research, and which confuse beta expansion with alpha, has come. 

Behold the results which would have caused an equal-weighted portfolio of all picks to lose at least 50% in the past year.

 

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Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:16 | 2431097 mjk0259
mjk0259's picture

But probably they are doing the opposite of their public recommendations so this looks good.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:26 | 2431130 Arius
Arius's picture

i tell you one thing:

if JPM is losing 2 billion in change, someone else is MAKING 2 billion.  The problem with the media is they focus on the losers instead of the winners ....

i wouldnt be suprised if some of these guys were able to pick up some of that change left behind by the gorilla ....

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 13:33 | 2432161 Panafrican Funk...
Panafrican Funktron Robot's picture

I'm pretty sure Jim Chanos was actually shorting those POS stocks.  Agreed on everyone else though.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 16:39 | 2432987 LuKOsro
LuKOsro's picture

He might have since he issued a short recommendation.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:17 | 2431099 mess nonster
mess nonster's picture

It's hard to pick a winner in a dropping market...

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:25 | 2431136 cossack55
cossack55's picture

Never invest with a firm named after an extinct animal.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 11:31 | 2431602 Pegasus Muse
Pegasus Muse's picture

Hugh Hendry (Eclectica Asset Mngt) is having a good year but he is an exceptional asset manager.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/hugh-hendry-back-full-eclectica-letter

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:20 | 2431108 youngman
youngman's picture

Just wait until they ALL buy Facebook.....it will make their year........sarc

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:22 | 2431115 midgetrannyporn
midgetrannyporn's picture

A poo flinging monkey would have outperformed those guyz.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:24 | 2431118 The Wolf
The Wolf's picture

and the winner is... Jim Chanos... both shorts dropped their shorts...

 

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 12:11 | 2431730 Matt
Matt's picture

yes the  chart is backwards, the results for Jim Chanos should be positive since he said to short and the stocks fell, resulting in a gain of around 80 percent between the two, which is a pretty good one-year return.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:25 | 2431119 Arius
Arius's picture

ohhh...

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:25 | 2431135 SheepDog-One
SheepDog-One's picture

JPM just lost imaginary money anyway, so the others can run around picking up wooden nickels in front of a steamroller all they like.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:27 | 2431145 SheepDog-One
SheepDog-One's picture

Arius you deleted your whole JPM post?

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:32 | 2431159 BlueCollaredOne
BlueCollaredOne's picture

I was thinking the same thing.  How did he/she edit their post after you replied on it anyway?

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:42 | 2431191 SheepDog-One
SheepDog-One's picture

I noticed the comment is way above too, must have been a dup.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 10:49 | 2431431 Arius
Arius's picture

yes ...my apologies ...

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:24 | 2431124 Stoploss
Stoploss's picture

This gives "ate up with the dumbass" an entirely different meaning.

The best decisions were to short at the bottom and go long at the top.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:27 | 2431141 jmcadg
jmcadg's picture

I went to one of these, I had a front row seat. Whitney Tilson was sat next to me furiously taking notes. Lol

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:27 | 2431143 Stoploss
Stoploss's picture

The face plant IPO is going to need another 100B shares, 'cause all those BTAN's and bunds aint doin so hot today.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:30 | 2431149 b_thunder
b_thunder's picture

Chanos is Da Man!

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:29 | 2431150 Christoph830
Christoph830's picture

Our guy Mark Faber HOLDING IT DOWN!!!!!!

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:33 | 2431163 Scalaris
Scalaris's picture

 

Jesus F. C. these were some atrocious calls.

My call for 2012 is to throw tons of copper pennies into a hole in the ground at the end of a random rainbow and hope to piss off a leprechaun enough to come out of hiding. 

Tweet me if interested to get in early.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:45 | 2431196 SheepDog-One
SheepDog-One's picture

LOL...I like it! Sounds way better than that Faceplant IPO stuff anyway.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:39 | 2431180 Madcow
Madcow's picture

no one cares about hedge fund investors.  what will be more interesting is when the insurance companies go up in flames - and ordinary people realize that all the money they've been stuffing in to annuities, whole-life policies, and other "safe as houses" assets is POOF, GONE.  

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 09:51 | 2431219 theTribster
theTribster's picture

This is why I NEVER listen to anyone else about buying and selling. I'd much rather lose money myself than letting someone else do it for me...

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 10:02 | 2431254 Deep79
Deep79's picture

More and more I see stuff like this I am convinced that 90% of people in finance are morons. I work in Finance and most people have no clue, at all, and they are in high postiions like director, president, vice president. 

Most of these morons caught a 30 yr bull market and seemed smart from 1982 to about 2007

 

 

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 10:12 | 2431278 AnarchoCapitalist
AnarchoCapitalist's picture

Faber predicted war and inflation; the results said no war and little inflation but we are actually still in a war. Also, the CPI didn't change much, but there is an incredible amount of inflation in food and energy. The CPI does not reflect this because it is so heavily weighted in housing and because new technology that debuts for the same price as a previous model is considered deflation according to the index. Just trying to be fair.

Wed, 05/16/2012 - 13:13 | 2432048 Carl Spackler
Carl Spackler's picture

Chanos is not dis-illusioned by all the noise out there !

Thu, 05/17/2012 - 17:19 | 2437394 N9
N9's picture

A simple average of the rightmost column above results in -11.7% (which by definition is equal weight).  I cannot seem to duplicate or confirm the statement that an "equal-weighted portfolio of all picks to lose at least 50%" by spreadsheet calculation, so I'm left to guess as to the origin of the statement.  If the author meant an equal investment in each "firm" by analyst, then the average analyst result is -8.6%, again from a spreadsheet.  In either case, the figures in the "results" column do not seem to support the -50% assertion....equal weight in the stocks and funds in the results above come to -11.7%, far less sensational than a halving in value.

Perhaps the neg 50% figure derives from the more than half of the 18 analysts recommendations yielding a negative return?  Anyone else looking at this?

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