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Whitney Tilson Calms Investors Following Abysmal Year By Telling Them He Has Lost Money Faster In The Past
Grab a cup of coffee, find a comfortable chair, lean back, and prepare to be entertained: here is Whitney Tilson's Mea Culpa for "returning" -24.9% in 2011.
Key soundbites:
- "There is no way to put a positive spin on 2011: our fund had a dreadful year, its worst ever on both an absolute and relative basis. While we made a bit of money on the short side, nearly all of our longs entering the year did very poorly and, compounding this, most of the investment decisions we made during the year subtracted value. It has been an extremely frustrating – and humbling – experience."...
- "We struggle with how bad of a grade to give ourselves for 2011 because in some ways it’s too early to tell."...
- "Why not an F? Because an F is reserved for blowing up – and we didn’t....Instead, we stayed calm, added to our favorite positions, and recouped some of our losses in the fourth quarter."...
- "We believe in eating our own cooking – we have a higher percentage of our net worths in our funds than anyone, by far – so it goes without saying that no-one has lost more money or feels worse about our fund’s recent performance than we do."...
- "In the case of most of our poorly performing stocks of 2011... we held or bought more."...
- "We feel badly about our recent performance and obviously wish we’d done many things differently, but we are not at all discouraged, as we’ve been through this before. If you look at our performance table at the beginning of this letter, you will see that we’ve lost more money, much faster, on two other occasions."...
- "Beyond the financial impact, we have our reputations on the line, take pride in what we do, and know most of our investors personally, so we feel like we’ve let our friends and families down – a truly lousy feeling."...
- "In 2011, we had no material winners other than J.C. Penney – but we don’t think this is a permanent state of affairs."...
- "Finally, and most importantly, as noted above, we think nearly all of our losses last year are temporary".
Odd - no mention of the fund's AUM over time...
Like we said - pure humor. And with that any last redemption request gets faxed in and Tilson's own cooking is the only cooking he will get to eat. Luckily, Tilson will always be invited on CNBC's Fast Money. And there is that "value investor" (act now - 80% off special only if you purchase in the next 10 minutes) conference thing...
And just because people need to know what to be long:
Our 10 largest short positions as of the end of 2011 were (in alphabetical order): Ethan Allen, First Solar, Garmin, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (see Appendix C), InterOil (discussed in our July and November letters1), ITT Educational Services, Lululemon Athletica, Nokia, PVH Corp., and Salesforce.com (discussed in our July letter).
We are creating the inverse "Tilson shorts" long ETF as we type...
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he could also have said he only performed half as bad as Paulson in 2011 (-52% i think i read)
"We think all of our losses are temporary..."
I think you don't know a damn thing about trading the market - nice work. I wouldn't give these guys a cent.
Down 10% equals sell. Always. Investing is not a horse race, you don't have to ride a loser to the end. Get a new horse.
.
That must be a decimal point, Pladizow, as in decimated, meaning a 10% loss. My point, exactly.
Assholes managing larger assholes money!
Down 10% equals sell. Always.
I take issue with that. So anybody who bought Au & Ag ETFs at peaks in 2011 should have sold them after a 10% decline? I think not.
You shouldn't buy PM ETFs isn't an answer, Physical also had >10% losses after peaks in 2011.
That is a fact and we can not change to many things with it. facebook timeline covers
Ethan Allen? Ethan Fucking Allen?!?!?! Is this schlamiel for real?
Haven't owned this stock in years but going long overpriced furniture these days just to spite Tilson doesn't seem like a great idea.
Ouch. Listen, I can't argue that T2 had a crappy year... they did. (But then again, so did I.)
I haven't been in the game for multiple decades, but IMHO doing touchdown dances when other guys are getting their faces ripped off isn't the best use of one's time. (Clones2, I'm not saying that is what you are doing. I'm just kind of taken aback by the whole thread's vibe, and the tone of ZH's Tilson coverage.) I've been on both sides, and I know Mr. Market is always ready to humble any one of us in a New York minute.
I guess I just don't get why there seems so much venom for Tilson... Did he insult ZH or the ZH comment crew?
Tilson strikes me as a decent guy. I've actually talked to him a couple times, and he seemed all right. And if it is just because he's been on tilt (bailing on his NFLX short, then going long), well, there are a lot of pros in that club. Hell, a lot of big shots had a worse year than Tilson. In fact, most pros got flat out clowned by this market.
Listen, I'm not trying to pick a fight, and everyone is entitled to their own opinions. This Tilson topic just seems to have veered a bit too far toward the mean-spirited side of things, in my opinion. All I'm saying is, it's easy to kick someone when they are down, but sooner or later, we're all going to be on the ground. And it sucks.
Schadenfreude ...is really good shit.
Don't worry, I am sure that, just like Paulson, Tilson will be happy to make up the difference with his own private wealth. Until all the paper-pushing fucknuts are held accountable for their decisions, nothing changes. Same as it ever was.
He could also have said: "IT'S ALL GONE!!!"
"Look at this way - you fucked up. You trusted us."
Reassuring.
been looking at salesforce long..
So far in 2012 he's getting pie-holed in LULU and ESI, not a good start to the year
Not to worry, those losses are only temporary.
Maybe he should pay Barry Minkow some more money to run a stock smear campaign again, errr, write some research. Oh wait...Barry is back in prison.
The investors should all be gone by now, or they are ex bernie madoff clients.
"sticking true, to the end, til zero do we fart".
They need to consult dickhead bove or hire jon corzine to accelerate their distruction.
The fact he's still in business is only indicative of the complete and utter stupidity and lemming behaviors of clients and the general populus. The x-factor, yet to be seen, is how much of the "hope" and "trust" enima can be pumped up the asses of the public by these completely self indulgent and incompetent crooks before a massive intestinal shit storm occurs.
If you read that whole thing, he is so desperate that he will blow himself. He will risk too much.
I defy anyone to try this type of bullshit on their yearly work review. These people either think their shit doesn't smell or flat out don't give a damn. I would love a job where I could play with eevryone's money and if it didn't work out, well, "c'est la vie".
What did Tilson do to Tyler that deserves this special and repeated attention? It's hilarious! Did they go to college together? Did Tilson steal his girl? We want more!!!
You do have to give em a bit of credit they are eating their own cooking...that says it all....
suckers nonetheless.....
So are banks screwing over hedge funds this year, or is every manager making terrible decisions?
Anyone know what equites are correlated to at the moment? They seem to track things up, but not down.
Magical thinking. There's really no simpler way to say it.
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! AA hit up 3% before gravity took over.
I've got a few tips for him that will make him rich:
1. SHORT SILVER
2. SHORT GOLD
3. SHORT OIL
4. GO LONG BAC & C
Just go all in!
"We think all of our losses are temporary..."
LOL, loses are never temporary. They exist whether you close the position or keep gambling.
They should require these guys to post how many months of gains they just wiped out. Having a money manager admit he just teleported you back to your 2007 balance says it all to the average math impaired client.
i think he meant to say 'our losses are transitory'... until we can find some other sucker to sell at higher than our buy in price.
right now that would be the Federal Reserve
My favorite:
"In the case of most of our poorly performing stocks of 2011... we held or bought more."...
Hmm, kinda like chasing a mole into its burrow...
IMHO....this is the funniest headline EVER!
We will most definitely see this in the '12 ZH most humorous headlines list!
Good Lord what a baffoon. If he has a fund at the end of this year then his "investors" deserve what they get.
Note to Tyler:
I wouldn't recommend grabbing coffee before reading this article....coffee ruins keyboards, dontcha know? lol
In his next letter, he can pat himself on the back for getting half of the ridiculous move up in NFLX yesterday by saying that NFLX "should go crazy to the upside"
Oh that's right by then earnings will be out and the stock will be in the 60-70 range again
Good thing he was not long junior gold stocks.
Otherwise, he would have been down 55% like Paulson.
Well his gmcr short and nflx long is a HOMERUN trade so far but you dont hear much abput that on this site now because its working!
Hahaha, JCP was their only winner!!!!
Are you fucking kidding me, JCP!!!
Bwaahahahaahahah.
That just made me piss my pants.
Yikes! Wonder if he's stillshort LULULEMON?
i wonder how bad it hurts him every day that he covered his NFLX short position early at a terrible loss. That must eat at him sooooo bad.
If you are making a 2% fee you need to beat the S&P by at least 3% every year. You shouldn't be paying more than 0.6% for good advice if you do need outside help.
I look like a genious for earning 1% on my money last year.
4 years after the so--called "financial collapse" and my money is collapsing. I guess I'm still paying for the banks bad loans.
"Finally, and most importantly, as noted above, we think nearly all of our losses last year are temporary".
Gotta love his optimism...
"It's only a flesh wound"...
The title of this piece is absolutely fucking precious. My hat is off to you. I officially stand in writer's awe.
Ironically , -24.9% is what you would have lost since Nov 25, 2011 until now if you had invested according to the gloom (albeit correct) info offered on this website.
Whitney Tilson, another Warren Buffett wannabe.
Tough shit, Whitney, you don't have bought politicians in your pocket like Uncle Warren does. You don't get the backroom deals that Warren gets. Not that any of that shit will save Buffett. He'll blow up in the next 2-3 years from his asinine derivative positions. I hope he stays alive long enough to watch his shit go up in smoke.
Yeah, I want to see Buffett and his fat turd sidekick Charly Munger motherfuck gold and silver some more after this whole system goes down. When their Wells, Goldman, BOA, and insurance companies go bust. I can't wait to watch those two sold-out, duplicitous turds talk about how useless precious metals are compared to paper, after this motherfucker blows up.
I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't put it past Tilson to get in a fistfight with Becky Quick over who gets first dibs on blowing Buffett.
Ummm Smokey, why do you beat around the bush with sugar-coated statements? Tell us what you really think. Release your inner spirit.
(OT, but Tyler - is there any way to keep the ubiquitous and meaninglessly-placed Owebamma ads off the ZH front page?)
Go here: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts2.htm
and follow the directions.