My first article for Forbes was published about 10 days ago where I profiled how to piggyback Seth Klarman.
The first stock we talked about was Facet Biotech, which just got bought today by Abbott for $27/share or a 67% premium.
My favorite part of the Forbes article is how the only comment was about how “worthless” it was to follow Klarman through 13F filings. Indeed.
Meb, there is a reason YOU are writing for Forbes and not the commenter. Being able to disagree without being disagreeable seems to be a lost value these days. On another topic, I'd love to see (pay) for some of your research on trend-following for some additional asset classes. I enjoyed your one-word answer to #17 of your FAQ. However, I'd prefer not to 'recreate the wheel'.
For a stat guy who understand logic so much better than I do, that was a low ball. Cherry picking, confirmation bias, and all that.
We know simulated LONG only positions with 1-3mo delay perform quite well on the average.
But you and I both know it's not about a single guess being right, regardless of how good it makes us feel about ourselves.
Please don't post stuff like this, it's not worthy of you or your audience.
The approach is right regardless of what morons think, don't descend down to their level of reasoning.
All right, enough BS… who owns ENZN and VSAT???
Two new white papers finished – just have to decide what to do with them
Schapiro's prolly looking into that one! LOL
Meb, I understand the defensive posture, but your 'clones' cover funds which include a VAST universive of stocks/ETFs. You could easily tout a winning security almost daily (if not more often) because I would bet it's somewhere in some possible clone. Then you start sounding like those Google ads you hate. So I think the point is – it's too hard for you to not be wrong. You can easily pick a clone (or clones w/ strategies) that contain winners. Conversely, you can easily pick clones (or clones w/ strategies) that protect losses the best.
To draw a simple comparison – it'd be like having a service (or fund) which contained all 500 from the S&P. I'm 100% sure I can come up with a combination of securities (aka 'strategies')that destroy the index. Maybe it's the top 2 positions, or maybe it's the top 50 with many technical criteria – point is – the possibilities are endless. I think the research (papers, etc) is all interesting, but I'd rather only hear about that vs a stock picking blog. I hate paper traders and monday morning QBs.
Yeah I know but how does one talk about the managers and clones at all? It is difficult to straddle the line w/o sounding sales-ish.
I've talked about Galleon and Baupost, both of which are on AC. I've talked about funds that don't make sense to clone and those that do. I just thought this was a timely example since readers would remember the article from a few weeks ago.
I agree in touting something after the fact. It is a struggle to talk about some of the clones without sounding snake-oily.
But the point of my post (and I have been writing about him for years) was that Klarman is a good manager to follow. I wrote the article then a couple weeks later the stock got bought out. It just seemed like a timely example, no more no less.
Yeah, I can understand that. Your Forbes article was more than enough. If a person doesn't understand anything from a manager's 25+ year index beating performance track record, there's not much you or anybody else can do. People will understand when they are ready – if ever. You can't save them all
Congrats for that Forbes publication! I just launched my new trading blog and added your blog's feed to my reader to keep up with your news. I'll be checking back quite often.
Jim
http://www.tradinggraphs.com
Meb,
In the past two weeks following some clones has paid for my AlphaClone subscription for the next 10000 years or so….thanks for the great product. One question though-why no coverage of Gotham/Greenblatt?
Congrats for that Forbes publication! I just launched my new trading blog and added your blog's feed to my reader to keep up with your news. I'll be checking back quite often.
Jim
http://www.tradinggraphs.com
Meb,
In the past two weeks following some clones has paid for my AlphaClone subscription for the next 10000 years or so….thanks for the great product. One question though-why no coverage of Gotham/Greenblatt?