Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade or so, you haven’t missed the continued bashing of all things alternative by the mainstream press. Every day one news organization or another has something on how these managers are all the evil that people do. Alternative managers have few if any friends in the news game. And while most probably don’t care, in reality, it does matter.
The fact the alternative managers are bashed regularly over fees, lock-ups, and almost anything else is amusing. It‘s clear to me that markets don’t always rise, so a diversified portfolio needs to have something to hedge the downside risk. An allocation to bonds along with equities, just won’t cut it.
I have found one ray of hope. A recent editorial in the New York Post details the problems that teachers unions across the country have with hedge fund managers. Not, you see, because of fees, lack of performance or anything to do with asset management, but rather because a number of hedge fund managers support charter school initiatives in some of the country’s worst school districts. It seems the teachers unions, in an effort to protect their current jobs, are willing to hurt pensioners, including their own, by demanding that these assets are not placed with people who actually manage money, but only with those who just gather it. Read the editorial here.
The one thing that all these hedge fund naysayers seem to forget is the simple law of supply and demand. If there were no demand, then there would be no supply. The market dictates the industry’s success or failure. The strong survive and those who don’t deliver wither and die. Of course, if the powers-that-be have a personal issue or some fear that success threatens the status quo, well then it’s no longer the market dictating to the industry, it’s stupidity.
THINGS THAT DRIVE ME CRAZY
I am sick and tired of people and their cameras. Everywhere you go, people are snapping photos on their phones or using a Go pro to capture the moment. We apologize to real photographers; as many of you know, I collect photographs. Here, though, I’m talking about all these random folks who are shooting this and shooting that. What do they do with all the photos? It’s just nuts.Recently I was at Disney World and people were more concerned about shooting the photo or video than watching the parade in front of them. I know, I’m in the minority here, but really, enough already. Capture the images in your mind, not your phone.