1/ ENDOWMENT BASICS
I get it. It’s fun to pat yourself on the back when your 401k beat Swensen...but before that victory lap, let’s walk through some basics.
Most of you quote returns and see an endowment as a giant pool of $ vs this, which is how I see an endowment:
Deleting my dating apps bc I want to fall in love the old fashioned way (hiding out from bounty hunters in an asteroid field after escaping the Empire’s attack on the rebel alliance base I commanded, in a galaxy far, far away)
Venture Capital is changing; Cambridge’s new report on this is A+.
“ …today’s mkt is not…20yrs ago. Broad-based value creation means success [isn't] limited to a handful of (inaccessible) funds...new & developing funds consistently rank as best performers”
Update call quote of the day:
"[our quarantine] is like vegas...we're losing money by the minute, cocktails are acceptable at any hour, and nobody knows what time it is..."
There are thousands of books about achieving extreme productivity, and very few on evaluating and redesigning needlessly toxic / over-demanding corporate cultures
Overview of Hedge Fund Strategies, a great reminder that “hedge funds” encompasses thousands of funds with different strategies, investable universes, risk tolerances, goals, and roles in a diversified portfolio
Truths learned about institutional investing, as I enter my 14th year:
- It’s not rocket science.
- The best investors are thinkers.
- Humans are biased.
- Incentives matter.
(1/x) Private equity 101: An attempt to provide a more thoughtful review vs. the noise
First, the term “private equity” is misused quite a bit on this platform; in this thread, private equity is an umbrella for equity asset class sub-strategies: LBO, growth equity, VC
1/n
In celebration of the increase in individual investors' stock market participation, a 🧵on conducting basic due diligence (single stock covered first, funds further down). Investing is not rocket science, but process is typically a key ingredient to success LT...
1/ In honor of Monday: A review of key academic research relating to modern portfolio mgmt—the foundation of everything we do—in tweet.
In the beginning there was darkness, Harry Markowitz speaks: Portfolio Selection (1952).
3. In finance language, this means that you are $30 "gross" ($15 of longs + $15 of shorts) but $0 net (+$15 of longs -$15 of shorts). This makes everyone feel good because it feels like you are taking zero risk...but in reality, your $1 is exposed to $30 of risk.
Right now you are traveling at half a million miles per hour around a supermassive blackhole 4,000,000x the mass of the sun. But it may all just be a hologram of a projected 2D reality. Enjoy your weekend.
Science. 🤯.
1/x META THREAD of my more thoughtful insights 📌
[i make no promises that they're actually good, but as always, I welcome all additional color, questions, corrections, and dissenting opinions]
Y’all realize it’s possible to show grace and not publicly shame people every single time you feel slighted by someone who behaved poorly or had a bad day, right?
Success of a new fund co/launch requirs ability to perform three very different functions: (1) analyst, (2) PM, (3) business operator/exec
Experienced mgrs often have learned to execute on all 3 flawlessly (or good enough) or have the sense to hire talent where they’re weak
Thoughts 24hrs in...crypto twitter is basically if your super-smart finance bro boyfriend, your weird conspiracy theory uncle, and your friend who 'already found that [cool] band like 6 months ago' had a baby that aggressively slides into your DMs....💕
Setting aside all the weird out there right now, bc my 6 year old just scored her first basket (ever!) in their game today and I’m elated 🏀
What’s ‘going good’ in your world?
Nothing quite like having your child (who ate both breakfast and 2 snacks) start wailing that she's hungry while you're on an intro zoom meeting with a multi-$B hedge fund team 🙈
1/x I haven’t threaded in a while so let’s talk about: where I found that super cool chart, cartoon, &etc…aka a non-exhaustive list of links to my favorite (publicly available) data and research reports
1/x Let’s talk about…monetary policy and The Fed *
*and central banks, hyperinflation, deflation, debt cycles, rates, bubbles, present-day, negative rates, and other thrilling concepts
In my opinion, filtering / muting the day to day market noise is still one of the single best investment strategies a long term investor can implement 📈
“Hedge funds” is not an asset class. HFs are strategies that are alike in fund structure but vary in terms of objective, focus, and asset class. They’re used to build a diversified portfolio, not to collectively beat an arbitrary benchmark in perpetuity.
*quickly muting my line during update call w/venture GP*
“[to my 5 year old] do not zip that up...let the cat out of the suitcase RIGHT NOW....”
#openLP
There's a serious lack of knowledge re: markets, hedge funds, trading, trading on margin, collateral, prime brokerage, options/derivatives, short selling, rules & regulatory agencies, settlement, exchanges, basic math, open interest, notional values, short v. gamma squeezes...
1 As promised, a thread outlining our team’s internal manager selection process, which has been developed over the years by my boss with input from the team (including myself)
Thank you to everyone who has tweeted in honor of
@nonrelatedsense
. We were friends and very close in real life, so feeling an enormous sense of loss, guilt and sadness. He was one of the most funny, sweet, intelligent people I’ve ever known and greatly missed. 💔
Enclosed is a simplified view of how pensions impact the long end of the curve. This is not a personal view on bond valuations or recession predictions; it’s me screaming into the abyss of twitter that rules of thumb are not reliable economic indicators
Let's talk about: your decks.
Please don't walk me through every page. Even better if we don't really open it, but if you have one, try to make it institutional quality-ish.
Successfully moderated a live discussion about monetary policy in the age of COVID without saying ‘unprecedented’...so yeah, not all heroes wear capes ;)
1/x Some see Twitter as risky with an asymmetric (downside) payoff esp for someone ‘like me’. There are tons of people whose life was negatively impacted by their behavior on social media, but...
Let’s talk about the benefits of being an allocator on here. A thread.
Wish I could go back and tell 22 yr old me that business travel is a lot less ‘first class to London and Hong Kong’ and a lot more ‘your flight to Baltimore has been delayed 2 hours, just kidding it’s been canceled’
Shoutout to the awesome men in life, especially:
(1) my dad: as a single parent he learned to curl my hair, and he’s now my go-to for advice
(2) my ex, an awesome dad & co-parent👌
(3) the gentlemen who supported my success as both mentors and advocates (also friends)
⭐️