Market Folly

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

DMoser, completely agreed. And that's why we have listed a note in the article saying that tracking Renaissance by 13F is not really useful, but more for fun since people are interested in what they are doing. Perhaps we should have made the note in bold or more prevalent, but there is one within the article. Thanks for the comment, we'll make it bold next time around.

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

Rolex18K: We've selected a list of managers who have a *proven* track record of long term outperformance. We're merely providing a resource for investors who wish to get inside these manager's heads. It can be tedious to go through and calculate % changes from quarter to quarter for each hedge fund, having to go line by line, position by position. We're simply trying to save investors some time who want this information. If it is not of use to you, then don't use it.

Also, you'll probably be interested to know that you *CAN* make money simply by mimicking their portfolios, as Mebane Faber has proved with his Alphaclone. Portfolios constructed using selected managers with proven outperforming track records have outperformed the s&p. Mebane's done great work, for instance tracking 'Tiger Cub' funds who we track on our blog. If you had selected a portfolio combo of their holdings, you would have outperformed the markets by 12% a year. You could also hedge the portfolio with a s&p hedge and then go long the various holdings and you could see the following results: Annualized Return: 13.5%, Volatility: 16.1%, MaxDD: -23.9%.

So, while you're entitled to your opinion that it does not work, there is a ton of numerical evidence that it indeed does work. But, in the end, we're simply providing a resource for investors. Thanks for your comment.