Completed my hedge fund tour of duty (Maverick, D.E. Shaw, Citadel, Schonfeld). Adjunct at ASU.
Now building an exceptional analyst training firm.
DMs open!
LAUNCHING ANALYST ACADEMY, AUG 5 COHORT
Hello!
We are very excited to be launching our next cohort of Analyst Academy.
What is Analyst Academy?
Six weeks and 60 hours of everything I wanted to teach my junior analysts (but never had the time).
The basic
A HEDGE FUND LIFE
Over ~6 weeks of tweeting, I've discussed many elements of the hedge fund research process. A big goal of mine is to lift the veil on how hedge funds research stocks & make money. My thesis is that there are teachable, repeatable processes and specific
Had another DM question - “Brett, how do I get a job at a hedge fund?”
Well, there’s a FRONT DOOR and a BACK DOOR. The front door is relatively straightforward. Go to a top undergrad, work in I-banking, wait for the headhunter e-mail (these days will come shortly after u land…
ANALYZE A BUSINESS IN 22 STEPS
Are you lost when your PM asks you "hey, go look at XYZ stock?" I've been there. While the business research process is a creative process with no set standard, I'd like to give you my roadmap in case it is helpful.
Ultimately as investors, we
A PODCAST CURRICULUM FOR THE ASPIRING BUY-SIDER:
Early in my career I worked at a firm that also had an in-house fund of funds. This fund had a very good up front training program, but the monthly analyst training program really blew my mind.
A few times per year, we had
5 THINGS I WISH I KNEW AS A FIRST TIME HEDGE FUND PORTFOLIO MANAGER
I've had some DMs / e-mails over the last few months seeking advice on the move from a single manager analyst seat to a multi-manager PM seat, which I thought I would tackle on this fine Friday afternoon
If you
MODELING SERIES: REVENUE BUILD APPROACHES 1
Crack open an elite buy-side model and perhaps the biggest takeaway will be how much works goes into the revenue build. Our job is to be right on Forecast Metrics (EBITDA, EPS, FCF) and you can't do that without being right on Revenue.
THE PRIMACY OF REVENUE GROWTH
Having grown up as a Tiger-style investor, one of the lessons that sticks with me the most is the value of revenue growth. As an impressionable 24 year old analyst, I will never forget Steve Mandel from Lone Pine telling our analyst group a simple
BEAT THE PODS: A 7-POINT RECIPE FOR SINGLE MANAGERS
There has been some fun discussion here recently about the trend from single manager hedge funds (SMs) to multi-manager hedge funds (MMs or "pods"). Which is very sensical after a year like 2022 where there was a big
MY DAILY SCHEDULE AS A PORTFOLIO MANAGER
Last week in class at ASU I had a PM at a NYC hedge fund come in as a guest speaker.
A student asked him the typical "day in the life" question and we got a good laugh thinking about a "Hedge Fund Morning Routine" post...his first step
Had a DM question asking for advice for a brand new analyst working at a pod shop. Noodled on it, and figured I would share the thoughts broadly in case helpful. I am far from the most tenured and successful pod PM - spent 4 years as a PM at combo of D.E. Shaw (not a pod)…
HEDGE FUND TIME MANAGEMENT
I've had a few DMs over the past couple months that went something like this:
"hey Brett, I just started at a HF and I am really overwhelmed. It feels like I never have enough time to get everything done, and my list gets longer every day"
UNIT ECONOMICS
"Unit economics" is an important tool in the tool box for the buy-side analyst that, surprisingly, is not discussed often by the sell-side outside of businesses that explicitly report enough data to calculate LTV (life-time value) and
"IS THIS INTERESTING?" A framework for assessing single stock opportunity.
Fundamental equity investors love to talk about their "process". Good analysts will have a fancy, disciplined, structured deep dive process that can take days, weeks, or even months to execute.
I don't know anything about $NVDA
Which is perfect. If you are a junior buy-side analyst faced with the common task to "take a look at $NVDA and let me know what you think", you likely don't either.
No domain knowledge, no historical understanding of the business, no grasp on
12 COMMON BUY-SIDE MODELING APPROACHES (that you won't see in sell-side models):
Why are buy-siders so obsessed with their models? The financial model really is the backbone of buy-side investing - it shows you business momentum, NPV of incremental changes, R/R potential, and..
RESEARCH MODULE: QUICK DIVE
I started at Maverick in '08 and when I say I was green, I was GREEN. I had no idea what I was doing. I started in investment banking in July '07, right at the tail end of the LBO boom and right at the beginning
Having worked for a few of these incredibly successful individuals and having been a (mediocre) PM at a few large hedge funds myself, I’ll tell you what I observed about motivations.
Past a certain level, money and social status no longer become the primary sustaining
New obsession: hedge funds.
Specifically, what motivates some of these hedge fund founders. Motivates them to make bold bets, manage the crazy life style.
Super fascinating to me.
Any good books on the topic?
I want a thrilling narrative. Not a how to.
Back in the saddle.
Just got back into my office after a 5-week, 4,500 mile road trip with my family. And I'll tell you what, my little 10x12 Regus office has never felt so peaceful!
I got fired from Citadel in 2018. I had been on the buy-side for 10 years at that point, and
YEAR 1 ON THE BUY-SIDE: 6 PIECES OF ADVICE
It's now been right around 2-years since I hung up my B-unit after 13 years of professional investing.
While my retirement was primarily for personal reasons (read: I was running FROM something, not TOWARD something), I have found a
ACCOUNTING FOR STOCK PICKERS
As a junior buy-side analyst, one of your primary roles is to develop accurate forecasts of 1) revenue, 2) EBITDA, 3) EPS and 4) FCF. These are the four most common forecast metrics (FMs) that a PM will then use as critical inputs in stock selection.
RESEARCH MODULE: ON PRIMARY RESEARCH
When I joined as a junior analyst at a Tiger cub, our mandate as an analyst team was to know more about our stocks than any other non-insider. That is a heavy mandate, but an analyst team of 40 supporting a portfolio of 120 stocks does
Here is John's 1-page syllabus from the Analyst's Edge.
When I was at a Tiger Cub participating in the hiring process in 2010, I interviewed a couple of John's students. They blew me away with their level of preparation.
It's not an exaggeration to say I wouldn't be doing what
John Griffin, ex right-hand man to Julian Robertson and founder of the now-closed Blue Ridge Capital, taught several classes at UVa and Columbia: The Analyst’s Edge, The Investor’s Edge, Seminar in Advanced Investment Research, and Securities Analysis and Idea Generation.
BLOOMBERG ARTICLE ON SYSTEMIC RISK FROM PODS
Some interesting points in this Bloomberg article on multi-manager funds.
A couple points stood out to me, and there were a couple points I would add. What stood out:
1) PODS ARE BIG. 30% of HF GMV per GS report (does anyone have
MANAGEMENT MEETING MANUAL ✔️
It's really one of the most bizarre rituals on the buy-side. The still wet behind the ears, 23 year old buy-side junior interrogating the 55 year old titan of industry on business strategy.
One of my first assignments on the buy-side was to fly
THE ELUSIVE "BUY-SIDE WHISPER"
I was speaking with a junior analyst today about earnings set ups. He mentioned that he was using credit card data to forecast prints, and while that approach was very helpful in calling the numbers, it wasn't helpful in calling what ultimately
NORMALIZED EARNINGS ANALYSIS
"Normalized earnings analysis", or "earnings power" analysis is one of the oldest tools in the fundamental analyst toolkit, discussed in depth by Ben Graham in Intelligent investor over 70 year ago.
Despite it's longevity, I often find myself
PITCH LIKE A PRO ✔️
Communicating your ideas succinctly & convincingly is one of the most important skills a buy-side analyst (or PM, for that matter!) can master
And early in my career, I was AWFUL at this. I fell into the "book report" trap - doing 3 weeks of research
I'll give you my 2 cents...
The DCF is paradoxically both a deeply flawed valuation methodology...and the only true methodology for valuation that we have.
The classic DCF approach to valuation an asset is to forecast 10 years of cash flows then apply a terminal multiple.
Oh man had so many conversations with PMs over the years on this exact topic. Existential conversations.
Investment professional leaves a solid seat for a pod PM role. Guarantee is enticing. Autonomy & direct payout is enticing. "I've been a money maker, how hard can it be".
Asking this as someone now getting daily inbounds from pained market neutral senior analysts/PMs. How did so many of us get duped into thinking this was a sustainable career path when most barely make more than base salary for yrs while being 3 bad mos of perf from getting fired?
FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS: SPIN-OFFS
I was poking around today and I noticed that $DHR is spinning off its water business Veralto (VLTO). Caveat, I spent about 3 minutes digging in, but for a company that mgmt is guiding to MSD organic revenue growth and 30-40bps implied margin
WRITING A 2024 SECTOR OUTLOOK
The annual outlook process is a staple of the buy-side investment process. And a part of the process I particularly enjoyed.
An opportunity to take a pause and think deeply about 1) what happened this year and what we can learn from it, and 2) our
THE MACRO OUTLOOK, FOR STOCK PICKERS
This is the time of the year that the sell-side likes to publish 2023 macro & markets outlooks. When I first started researching the hedge fund industry in '05 I came across the 1987 Paul Tudor Jones documentary. My impression, influenced
HEDGE FUNDS: THE SUMMER INTERN
As a hedge fund PM, the concept of having a summer intern is really seductive. I've got a team in place, sprinting as fast as we can to research stocks & generate ideas, yet it feels like I can never fully complete my "to do" list. I've got a list
"THE MARKET IS BROKEN": WHY STOCKS MOVE
We are in a stage of markets where it is fashionable to look at the massive moves in $NVDA (+90% YTD) and $SMCI (+242% YTD) and conclude that the market is broken and price discovery is dominated by quants, pods & retail momentum traders.
Had a DM question: "hey Brett, I have a hedge fund case study coming up - do you have any advice?"
So I thought about it a bit, reflecting on the multiple case studies where I have participated (both as interviewer & interviewee).
Here is what I came up with:
ASSESSING YOUR DOWNSIDE
There are all sorts of methods & frameworks out there for selecting stocks on the buy-side, but I've found that the most common is the tried & true risk/reward ratio (which should be called the reward/risk ratio, but it doesn't quite roll off the tongue)
TALENT PORTAL: RESUME FORMAT
By the way, I love you, but many of your resumes are UGLY.
If you want my tried & tested template (post Citadel version shown below), please e-mail me at brett
@fundamentedge
.com.
I'm happy to share (I will batch the responses so please be patient)
Such a good framing
As a hedge fund analyst there is an interesting dichotomy where your job is to be the resident expert on a name. To be able to answer any possible question. It's easy to get stuck in complexity and deliver a "book report".
What I've noticed about the best
"The outstanding[analysts] do a wonderful job of isolating the critical component of each differentiated investment idea. The less outstanding ones will throw a lot of facts at you but will require you [the decision maker] to discover the real core of the investment" - Win Murray
DE-GROSSING, WHAT IS IT?
With lots of chatter about "unwinds" & "de-grossing" over the last couple weeks and jefco PB comments of the worst HF unwind in decades in December circulating on twitter, I thought it might be a useful exercise to try to break the concept of
PODCASTS ON THE TIGER-STYLE OF INVESTING
Just listened to a really terrific podcast with Chris Hansen from Valiant Capital (former Blue Ridge).
Chris offered a terrific articulation of the requisite short seller mindset & process as well as some really great frameworks for
BUILDING A BUY-SIDE NETWORK
I had a question from a junior analyst this week. "Brett, my PM asked me to start building my investor network...how do I do that?"
So I've been thinking a bit about a framework for building a network. Thought this was a great topic to share broadly
Winning 54% of points = 80% of matches
In this sense, there is direct parallel to stock selection & trading. It's cliché to say "the best traders are right 52% of the time", but it's true.
So act accordingly. Don't spiral after a lost point, keep your ego out of it and stay
"Perfection is impossible.
In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches.
But what percentage of points did I win?
54%
In other words, even top ranked tennis players win barely more than half the points they play.
When you lose ever
IDEA VELOCITY
As a buy-side analyst (hedge fund, long only, family office) your role on a most basic level is to support the alpha generation of the portfolio.
You do this by either providing research support to other's ideas (from PM or senior analyst) or proposing your own
$NVDA & THE POWER OF THE "SECOND DERIVATIVE"
As stock pickers, we are advised to identify stocks that trade at a price-value gap. To repeatedly buy stocks below their intrinsic value. Certainly that seems like prudent advice. Who wouldn't want to buy a dollar bill for 75 cents?
TOUGH TIMES PLAYBOOK
Getting a DM like this is better than my biggest short down 30.
This industry can take you to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. When you're low, it feels like things will never improve. But they always do.
WHAT'S BAKED IN?
A common mistake that I made early in my career as a fundamental equity analyst was "first order thinking" - reflexively seeing something good as good and something bad as bad.
After being repeatedly pushed by my PM with the question, "that's great, but is it
HIDDEN FACTORS
On a day when NOVO’s FLOW data (GLP-1) is rocking the med tech complex ($DVA -19%, $INSP -13%), I thought I’d comment on a concept that I’ve been thinking about a lot for the last 8 years - the concept of hidden factors and how thematic factors seem to be
GOOD COMPANY, BAD STOCK
Identifying a winning stock is not simply as easy as identifying a company with a great fundamental outlook.
Valuation matters, and, as we have seen vividly over the last 24 months, the valuation lens can get unhinged in markets at times.
I retired from managing money in 2021 after 13 years as an analyst & PM. I had no idea what I was going to do next. On a whim, I started tweeting some of the content from my class at ASU, and through that I met a handful of analysts on here who had gone through the Point 72
The Bloomberg Big Take: A look inside hedge fund giants performing a kind of human-resources alchemy: turning the base metal of promising analysts into the gold of portfolio managers who might bring you $50m to $100 m in yearly profit
via
@markets
Quarterly reminder that a factor-constrained, beta-neutral firm generating 5-6% in a quarter is impressive.
These firms aren't designed to outperform the market, and whether the S&P 500 is up or down 10% doesn't structurally matter to returns.
~6% net P&L, by my estimation, is
Schonfeld was the best-performing large multistrategy hedge fund in the first quarter, recovering from challenges it faced in 2023 when investors pulled money and a potential deal with Millennium fell apart
COMMUNICATION ON THE BUY-SIDE, 4 RESOURCES THAT HELPED ME
When I first joined the hedge fund world, I figured success or failure as an analyst would be mostly about my technical skills.
Could I build error free models?
Could I accurately assess EPS estimates?
THESIS CREEP & TRADING PLANS
Ahh the great killer of performance. Thesis creep. You generate an idea, build your model, develop your thesis, get it in the book. So exciting!
Then something unexpected happens. Well, I didn't see that coming, but that doesn't destroy my thesis,
IDEA GENERATION MACHINE
The most flawlessly executed fundamental research process means NOTHING if not tilted towards the right investment opportunity.
An analyst can spend 2 weeks checking off every box on a Deep Dive Research Roadmap,
IDEA GENERATION: IDEA BUCKETS
Continuing on the theme of idea generation, I have found that it is helpful to bucket idea types. Being very clear about the underlying characteristics of a compelling idea can aid greatly in identifying new ideas.
I'll give you an example. I once
A STOCKPICKER'S GUIDE TO INFLATION
And no, I won't be talking about a Fed pivot. This thread is about the micro impact of inflation, the company specific impacts.
Is inflation good or bad for the company I'm analyzing? I will discuss some frameworks to help.
ANALYST EVALUATION, A 6-PART FRAMEWORK
Over the course of my 13-year buy-side career I had the challenge & honor of managing a total of 9 analysts, not including 3 on an in-house team in India and not including 6 interns.
First, I found managing a team as a PM to be HARD.
POD PORTFOLIO MGMT SERIES: FACTOR MODELS
Ok, the time has come to discuss portfolio management & risk models. And the two are inescapable, as pods enforce portfolio management via a risk model overlay. So this will really be a discussion of risk models.
…and literally Fed-Ex’d them to I-banking MDs on the theory they would think it was an important document, open it and interview me. It worked. Through my career, that hustle and creativity compensated for what I lacked academically / intellectually…
THESIS DEVELOPMENT: "WHAT'S A THESIS?"
The first semester that I taught the buy-side analyst process in the classroom to Arizona State undergrads...it didn't go very well. Our world is so filled with jargon, and I tend to speak quickly, that it became very apparent to me that I
A SIMPLE STOCK SELECTION FRAMEWORK - FEV (fundamentals, expectations, valuation)
In general, one of the biggest differences in hedge fund stock selection vs. mutual fund / long-only stock selection is style flexibility. By mandate, many long-only (LO) managers are
It's a fascinating question and this thread has some really thoughtful responses. I hear this narrative a lot that stocks are "over-themed" and "over-shoot". I think it's particularly interesting in the case of $NVDA that is up ~170% YTD despite negative active flows YTD.
I've
What continues to confuse me about the mkt is how obvious things keep working; it's now >4 years of this. I'm being serious; I know I joke about "nothing is ever priced in" but why is that? It can't just be the MM funds or retail.
EXPANDING MY MONEY MAKING TOOLKIT:
It's a bit of a rite of passage for Tiger-style investors moving to pod-style to have a difficult transition (mine definitely was!!). Why is that?
Tiger-style investing is generally straight forward: long winners, short losers with 9-18m...
EVALUATING MANAGEMENT
We hear this all the time in the stock market. A company has "great CEO" or an "awful management team". These are vague terms that, more often than not, are highly correlated with the recent performance of a stock.
John Foley of PTON was hailed as a
INFLATION & THE PERILS OF PRICE-DEPENDENT GROWTH
Digesting this recent set of news on consumer price push-back in situations like $MCD, $SBUX and $MDLZ has had me thinking about a very basic & critical construct when it comes to analyzing businesses: how much of the growth is
AI TOOLS IN THE INVESTMENT PROCESS: 5 BARRIERS TO SCALE
One of the really cool (and unexpected) byproducts of what we are building at Fundamental Edge is that increasingly more financial software entrepreneurs are reaching out to us for guidance on their tools.
This is really
ACADEMY KICK-OFF DAY!
Exciting day here at Fundamental Edge!!
In a little over one hour we kick off our inaugural Analyst Academy with 30 extremely talented investment professionals. The group ranges from a 15+ year experienced PM to a few undergrads headed direct to buy-side.
THE LIFE: GETTING FIRED
I've had a couple DMs since I posted my Tough Times Playbook from people who have been fired from a buy-side seat recently, and I've been working on gathering my thoughts in that hopes that I could provide some tips to help people in this situation.
…But I have a soft spot for the BACK DOOR stories. I’ve met plenty of nice, competent HF analysts from Exeter, Wharton, Goldman. But as a state school kid myself, I love the hunger and the hustle, not the easy stories. To get to Wall Street from ASU I printed out 100 resumes..
CONFERENCE FIELD GUIDE
I got a lot of laughs on twitter from all the GS TMT conference takes today so I thought today would be a good day for my conference field guide, the talk that I would give my new analysts when they joined my team.
Insightful analysis on GLP-1s from a biotech HF manager
My priors on TAM analysis (both in biopharma & elsewhere) confirm his framework...for so many reasons, be careful extrapolating an early adopter set to a broader scaled impact (and the toothpaste example is just absurd lol)
What an amazing adventure Fundamental Edge has been so far.
Just three months ago I started tweeting on a whim, and tonight I had the great honor of teaching our concepts at Harvard Business School.
Truly a pinch me night. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I had to read this twice (and google a few things), but I found this to be a fascinating, scientific approach to the question of MM crowding and it’s associated risks. It is obviously fashionable in markets to have the conversation of conceptual MM risk, but a whole different
11 STEPS TO DISSECT A LOSS
Early in my career as a hedge fund analyst I had this naïve and delusional belief that I could avoid big losers.
That I would work harder and be more clever than the pack, and subsequently not deal with the losing side of the stock picking ledger.
A simple truth often missed
In competitive and mostly efficient markets, the current state dynamic gets priced efficiently
It’s the direction of travel that matters. The next card to be flipped over.
A C company improving to a B company will be a better investment than an A
EARNINGS SEASON APPROACHES 1/2
I'll caveat all of this in that I don't think there is a one-size-fits all approach to earnings season. At a Tiger-cub I spent ~10% of my time thinking/planning for earnings and as a pod PM I spent ~40%.
Though at a tiger-cub, I wish that I knew
WELCOME TO EARNINGS SEASON
Oh, earnings season. This busy, super volatile time that pops up on our calendars every 3 months, consuming the consciousness of market participants.
10 years ago when scheduling my wedding date, my wife wanted to get married in mid-April.
THE SHORT SIDE
Oh, short-selling. The bliss. The horror. I don't think anything in this business feels better than nailing a short.
The analytical work required, the independent thinking to go against the prevailing narrative, the guts to stick with a scary position - when
CROWDSOURCING: As a buy-side interviewer, what are your favorite interview questions to ask candidates? And why?
And more broadly, what sort of things make a candidate really stand out in your interviews? Do's & dont's.
My 2 cents on this news.
The beauty of the multi-manager model is that when, done well, the P&L stream produces a nearly pure alpha stream (albeit levered). That's insanely valuable for an LP who is already underwriting other factors like beta, credit risk, interest rate risk,
The reasons why Schonfeld & Millennium are in talks over a strategic partnership are well laid out in today’s FT. The multi-manager model is at its apex (if not already peaked); the shakeout will have profound implications for the hedge fund industry as AUM seeks alternatives.
9 SUGGESTIONS FOR OPTIMIZING YOUR SELL-SIDE EQUITY SALES RELATIONSHIP
When you land on the buy-side, your head is likely to be spinning for the first 6 months. So much to navigate - internal systems, internal culture, how to actually DO THE JOB, and a cadre of of counterparties.
HEDGE FUNDS - BREAKING IN:
Our mission at Fundamental Edge is to train the next generation of fundamental equity investment professionals.
Roughly half of the participants in our three FEA (Fundamental Edge Academy) cohorts have been Learners (happy with seat, often fund
Thoughtful thread & agree with a lot of this
A debate I've had with HF friends for a decade...when does the alpha get "arb'ed" away
Thought a LOT about this
The best mental model I can come up with is that of pareto distribution, which suggests that in any productive system
1/ So many MM launches (Jain Global, Freestone) and probably more to come as Citadel / etc. are closing money to new investors. Are we peak pod? Has the pendulum swung too far? Will alpha be competed away as new entrants enter? (Thoughts from a SM analyst)
END OF AN OFFICE ERA AT FUNDAMENTAL EDGE
Despite growing up in Idaho and going to college at Arizona State, I lived in NYC for 11 years from '07-'18 chasing my career dreams. In 2018, slightly disgruntled with the hedge fund industry and massively burned out, my family moved to
EARNINGS PREVIEW PROCESS
It's almost that wonderful time of the year again. Earnings season. Earnings print days are 2% of trading days, but drive 20% of stock idiosyncratic volatility. Particularly with less than 3 months left in the calendar year,
EARNINGS SEASON APPROACHES 2/2
6) IDENTIFY POSITIONING
As more capital has flowed into long/short, particularly the pod model, I have lamented with many fellow PMs how positioning is often deterministic in driving P&L in earnings seasons. That great long that people have
Really sorry to hear about the closure of the Brookfield hedge fund. 66 employees and 38 investment professionals impacted.
I've been there. On a "bloody Tuesday" in Feb of 2018 me and 50 of my very talented friends lost their jobs when Citadel closed Aptigon.
While I look back
SCALING A MULTI-MANAGER TEAM
I was going through some of my materials today in creation of Academy modules and I found a deck that I put together in summer '20 (post my 2 pod PM jobs and post quant-fund consulting gig) when I was interviewing with a large multi-manager as a PM.
Completely agree and as a former healthcare PM my observation was that the biotech industry was the only group that really got this.
The biotech industry is so capital consumptive and the business model is very sensitive to availability & cost of capital , so this matters, a
Deeply strange to me that some VCs - who know very little about public markets despite their vast knowledge on a multitude of other topics - are confidently saying that a software company needs $500m in ARR to go public.
This is *definitively* wrong. Companies can go public
5. REPEAT. Do this for 100+ funds, drip new ideas quarterly (leverage same ideas). It’s a numbers game!! Create as many contacts as you can. And make it clear that you want a job!
A lot of work? Yes! Likely to be successful with hard work and persistence? Also yes! Good luck!
AI Investment Process Vendors - seeking comprehensive list & feedback:
We are wrapping up an Analyst Academy cohort tomorrow and won't launch again until August 5th. July will again will be my "semi-sabbatical" where I will take critical meetings but mostly be off the desk (for