Daniel Moser

The Ultimate Game Changer: Why 2009 Will Be Worse Than 2008 (Part 2)

Buy and hold is not dead. Buy and hold has apparently been mis-interpreted by just about everyone out there claiming it is dead. No one suggests buying today and literally holding it forever. That is a naive assumption that today's price is the best price that you will see long into the future. Trading as described by ATWshop is really a wreckless recommendation for the average investor i.e. the people who work for a living and allocate some portfion of their savings to equities. Furthermore the average investor does not have the education nor will to do the homework necessary to construct a properly designed trading system and modify that system when it ultimately breaksdown (and they all do). Mutual funds will never be dead. So long as people need assistence in allocating their savings between different assets. Sure passive investments with monthly or annual reinvestments will never put you on the Forbes top investor list nor Trader Daily's big income award...but it will very likely provide a decent source of return that is suitable for the average person. Quite frankly if ATW recognizes that no author can call the market with any sort of accuracy....why then would he/she think it a prudent decision to build trading systems or use technical analysis which by their very nature attempt to "call the market" all the time?

Hedge Fund Portfolio Tracking: Renaissance Technologies (Jim Simons), Q3 2008

There needs to be a major disclaimer in this article. Some hedge funds that are being tracked are prefectly fine and arguably helpful. Anything related to Renaissance should be looked at for fun with no intentions of gaining any insights from it. I would argue that no insight can be gained looking at Renaissance because they are more than anything a quant shop. As an individual from the outside looking in...you have no idea why they own those securities, how long they have owned them in relation to the filing period, how long they will continue to hold them, etc. For all you know, they are holding certain securities in one fund because it tends to behave a desired way with another fund you have no information on. It is really dangerous to attempt to garner information from a fund that is famous for changing strategies midgame.

The managers at Renaissance are like Gods. They are all extrodinarily intelligent. Renaissance is more like a Think Tank than a hedge fund. They are not ordinary folks. They are Phd in mathematics, physics, and statistics. In conclusion, just take a huge grain of salt from any holdings reports on Renaissance related funds.