Owen, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but your headline recalls this 1970s advertising campaign for National Airlines. (Sadly, National went out of business before I got a chance to fly Cheryl.)
Let me preface this comment by saying I usually enjoy your comments. However, the countdown thing is so 2008. You do know this is Gawker and not Gizmodo, right?
I think this might be where I part company with most Gawker commenters, but I kind of like the cut of this guy's jib.
I appreciate someone who can tell company managers to their faces (well, almost) that they're frauds, and make major coin while doing it.
Overcompensation issue to one side (I'd say that's a function of there not being enough of them, rather than too many) I do think hedge funds play a useful role in the economy -- and the more they try to stir things up with fossilized management teams, the better. I guess seeing analytical thinking win out is just that important to me, so I'll tolerate all sorts of personal eccentricities along the way. I can even respect the yoga enthusiasm.
@skahammer: I have no problem with hedge fund managers like John Paulson making out like bandits - his investors did too. Where we part ways is that there are way too many hedge fund managers, not too few. I thought the definition of a hedge fund was to manage risk. Your hero didn't do that, losing 32%. I don't care if he is into yoga or not - he lost 32% for his investors and took an extra 2% (if he has a standard hedge fund deal) of their assets as well. I outperformed him. He's no genius.
@registered: I don't know this for certain -- which is what makes this fun -- but if you'll give me some odds appropriate to your level of certainty here, I'd be willing to wager that over a suitably long period (five years? ten?), this guy's investors did make out. I've got twenty-five dollars in my wallet -- how does four-to-one sound?
Your larger point -- about their being too many hedgies -- deserves a more analytical response. I admit I'm just citing a basic macroeconomic/strategy analysis, where the persistence of abnormal profits denotes a market that is insufficiently exploited. I suppose your counterargument is that hedgies work to concentrate rather than spread risk, or that their unregistered status creates an irresistible temptation to tiptoe around the law to others' detriment? Not bad arguments, but I'm curious where you would take them.
Losing 32% is manna in this market. Congratulations on losing slightly less or whatever - unless you're running a fund, I'm not impressed. It's one thing to get lucky shorting oil and Google (like I did this year), but it's quite another to sling a couple billion around.
The problem with hedges in my eyes isn't that they're too numerous, it's that they've been getting too large to be nimble.
It's probably just me, but those pics of the terrace (really his?) and the private jet make me mad. How in the world does a man who loses 32% for his investors - cut the crap about how he out-performed the market -
How in the world does an investment manager who cannot manage investments make that much money? I guess it's the lethal 2% of assets, regardless of performance.
@registered: First, we don't know for sure if he actually takes 2% or if his fee is lower. Second, most hedge funds need the management fee to pay overhead (just like your mutual funds do). For a fund his size, it wouldn't be unheard of for him to have 100 or so employees ranging the gambit from secretaries to portfolio managers. Each of these people get a salary, the lease on the office space needs to be paid, the lights need to be kept on.
I guarantee the vast majority of Loeb's wealth comes from the performace fee that only gets paid when his investors make money.
@Trixie from Toronto: The arabesque photo and the leg stretch photo are HILARIOUS. It's like a "Whole New Julia"---centered, alone, introspective. She believes in whatever she projects in the mirror. She's a devote follower of The Secret crap. If she writes it, says it, wants it--it's hers. There was a fierce determination in this yoga photos. Still, I laughed myself silly.
@Trixie from Toronto: She's an infant. And I really wouldn't call that working out. She is doing that thing you do before you work out--stretching. Seriously, she's 28 or whatever, grow the eff-up. BTW I would love to be present at the inevitable catfight. Mee-ow.
isn't it shortsighted for a hedge fund manager to invest in so many excesses including even the most expensive apartment in NYC?
does that send a message to his clients that (1) he is a master of the universe and they are along for the ride or (2) he is grossly overpaid at their expense
judging from the return on his fund i pick option (2)
10/27/09
10/27/09
Maybe watching Andy Cohen is making me delirious, who knows. #twitter
10/27/09
10/27/09
10/27/09
10/27/09
Here
gawker.com/5390436/ayelet-waldman-now-fantasizing-on-twitter-about-screwing-husband
and
gawker.com/5390432/ayalet-waldman-now-fantasizing-on-twitter-about-screwing-husband
10/27/09
10/27/09
03/25/09
03/24/09
03/24/09
03/24/09
03/24/09
03/24/09
03/24/09
Let me preface this comment by saying I usually enjoy your comments. However, the countdown thing is so 2008. You do know this is Gawker and not Gizmodo, right?
03/24/09
@MisterHippity:
03/24/09
So tell me: How do you the "joke" thing over on Facebook?
02/03/09
Not like a private jet can't find it's way to Indo or comparable...
And if an art dealer turns away a big-money sale because you're ill-mannered, man, you know you're a new level of insufferable tool.
02/03/09
02/03/09
[money.cnn.com]
02/03/09
02/03/09
02/03/09
I appreciate someone who can tell company managers to their faces (well, almost) that they're frauds, and make major coin while doing it.
Overcompensation issue to one side (I'd say that's a function of there not being enough of them, rather than too many) I do think hedge funds play a useful role in the economy -- and the more they try to stir things up with fossilized management teams, the better. I guess seeing analytical thinking win out is just that important to me, so I'll tolerate all sorts of personal eccentricities along the way. I can even respect the yoga enthusiasm.
Now, who's this Julia Alliblog person? (j/k)
02/03/09
02/03/09
Your larger point -- about their being too many hedgies -- deserves a more analytical response. I admit I'm just citing a basic macroeconomic/strategy analysis, where the persistence of abnormal profits denotes a market that is insufficiently exploited. I suppose your counterargument is that hedgies work to concentrate rather than spread risk, or that their unregistered status creates an irresistible temptation to tiptoe around the law to others' detriment? Not bad arguments, but I'm curious where you would take them.
02/03/09
Losing 32% is manna in this market. Congratulations on losing slightly less or whatever - unless you're running a fund, I'm not impressed. It's one thing to get lucky shorting oil and Google (like I did this year), but it's quite another to sling a couple billion around.
The problem with hedges in my eyes isn't that they're too numerous, it's that they've been getting too large to be nimble.
02/03/09
Loeb opened his fisrt fund in 1995. If you invested in 1995 you are probably way ahead of the game (even with the 2008 losses).
02/03/09
How in the world does an investment manager who cannot manage investments make that much money? I guess it's the lethal 2% of assets, regardless of performance.
02/03/09
I guarantee the vast majority of Loeb's wealth comes from the performace fee that only gets paid when his investors make money.
02/02/09
Is she fucking 12?
02/02/09
02/03/09
02/03/09
The yoga poses -- so hilarious. And so subtle!
"Look at me!!! You like yoga?? I can do yoga!!! Look!!! Here I am!! Doing yoga!!!!!"
02/03/09
02/02/09
does that send a message to his clients that (1) he is a master of the universe and they are along for the ride or (2) he is grossly overpaid at their expense
judging from the return on his fund i pick option (2)
02/02/09
02/02/09