Posted on

Learning from hedge funds’ billion dollar mistakes (podcast)

In this week’s episode of Tradestreaming Radio, we interview Stephen Weiss, author of the newish book, Billion Dollar Mistake: Learning the Art of Investing Through the Missteps of Legendary Investors. You can also find a full transcript of the show here.

Weiss had a long-spanning career on Wall Street (Oppenheimer, Salomon, Lehman) where he covered many of the top hedge funds and even spent part of his career helping run Stevie Cohen’s SAC Capital.  He took some great insights and made them even more interesting: by focusing on the mistakes top investors have made.

We discuss:

  • Why mistakes are better learning experiences for investors than winners
  • Why passion is not an investment strategy and why Kirk Kerkorian loved American cars too much
  • How Omega Advisor’s Leon Cooperman plays and manages risk in emerging markets
  • Why Bill Ackman made loot on Barnes and Noble ($BKS) but lost a ton on Borders ($BGP)
  • How these takeaways are applicable to individual investors

I really enjoyed this discussion with Weiss not only because it was an interesting view into the investing patterns of the world’s best investors but he’s distilled his experiences into a real discipline.

One really compelling insight I think we can all take away from The Billion Dollar Mistake is that it’s hard to discern whether successful trades were skillful or just lucky.  Trading losses provide an opportunity for investors to reckon their processes.

More Resources

Learn more about the book and Stephen Weiss

Posted on

When the anti-Wall Street rant morphs into just another sales pitch

I know there’s a movement spearheaded by indexers, Bogleheads, Efficient Market Hypothesists, Random Walkers and just plain haters of vampire squid to hate everything Wall Street.  This is not a post defending the barbarians at the gate or even the monkeys in charge of the business.  Rather, I’m riffing on a more recent phenomenon I’m experiencing — that of the mainstream contrarian.

Just another sales pitch

Listen, with so much money at stake, Wall Street has brought opprobrium on itself with outsized returns, lavish lifestyles and bigger than life personalities.  Cramming poor investment schemes and products down clients who should and shouldn’t know better has been a staple of the business for decades.

So, of course, it comes as no surprise that a lot of people have been looking for alternatives.  Better ways of investing, saving and planning for their financial futures.  And it comes as no surprise that a whole industry of products and services arose to supply these investors.  From slick investment newsletters, communities of pundits punters like Seeking Alpha, talking heads on CNBC and even the ETF industry — all have merely taken the old Wall Street model and merely updated it.

Enter the mainstream contrarian.

So, instead of crappy structured products being sold hard by brokers, investors are left with hundreds of arcane ETFs without any real idea what to do with them.  Buy and hold ’em?  Well, that doesn’t really work for investors on the cusp — or in — retirement who need to actively generate income.  Asset allocation?  Well, who really knows what the right mix of risk and return is for anyone?  401(k)s?  Well, those are being manipulated and forcibly rebalanced in a way that’s good for the mutual fund companies, bad for investors.

Evoluton, not revolution

We’ve taken the honorable pursuit of looking for better alternatives to Wall Street yet have merely replaced Wall Street with another manifestation of slick sales people taking advantage of unsuspecting investors.  Investors eat up the anti-Wall Street pitch.  That there is a better way.

And there is.  But it can’t be sold; It has to be bought.  It requires being intellectually honest and not just compliantly honest.  It requires creating technologies, services, and platforms that say:

hey, the old way typically didn’t work.  We have just one possible solution.  But to be honest — we’re dealing with uncertainty. Nobody really knows the right way to do this.  We believe ours is a good product/service but ultimately, we’re all in this together, trying to plan for a future which is ultimately unknowable.

I guess these aren’t really solutions as much as they are gamemplans.  This way, this evolution (not, revolution) in financial services truly departs the old way.  Otherwise, it’s just the Wall Street wolf dressed up in anti-wolf clothing.

Posted on

Bloomberg beefing up reflects good things for financial industry

I’ve written about previously (here and here) about Bloomberg’s expansion bloombergand eventual dominance of financial media from news to data and consumer.  The WSJ reports today that indeed, Bloomberg is forecasting a respectable 10% growth rate for 2010 and plans to add an additional 1300 employees.

The revenue gains would come largely from a projected increase of 12,000 subscriptions to the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides data, analytics and news geared to financial-services professionals.

Bloomberg’s revenue for last year was estimated at $6.25 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Based on that estimate, the new projections would push revenue to nearly $6.9 billion this year.

Growth is good for Bloomberg and ostensibly, the media giant is seeing increased demand for its terminals from institutional investors — a sign that things are picking up on Wall Street and Stamford, CT.

With the recent acquisition of BusinessWeek and content sharing deals that land Bloomberg content on the WaPost and beyond, Bloomberg is turning up the manheat on Dow Jones.

Be afraid, be very afraid.