Clarium Loses 90% From Peak After Thiel Hedge Fund Has Third Losing Year
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
During 2008, he gained 59% in the first 6 months, lost 40% during the second 6 months, and so was only down about 4.5% for 2008. He then lost another 25% during 2009. The fund is down 65% from it's peak (Jun 2008), so investors only lost 65% if they bought into the fund in July 2008 and pulled money out in Dec 2009.
An investor who got in on Jan 1, 2008 is only down 30%, and an investor who got in in 2002 has gained 12%/year.
However, considering that Clarium assets under management are down from about $8bn to about $2bn, that's only about 25% of investors since the peak (assuming everyone invested equal sums of money at the same point in time - most certainly not true).
people should first learn to read financial journalism correctly before sending "corrections" back :)
I was just making the point that giving Thiel your money wasn't necessarily a bad move. He has failed to properly manage at least one of {volatility, investor's expectations}, but he has still made 12%/year.
Also, if they warned of the housing bubble, did they do nothing to protect assets? The losses should have stemmed around 20-40% if they knew that.
If I make 10 predictions per day, per year, statistically one of them will probably come true. Get mainstream media involved, ignorant "financial" bloggers, etc. and suddenly I'm a freaking genius who predicted something long before anyone else did!
This doesn't make me start, trustworthy, or anything else, and it certainly doesn't warrant investing billions of dollars with.
His fund seeks to profit from broad economic trends by trading everything from currencies to commodities, a strategy known as macro investing. Such hedge funds returned an average of 2.2 percent last year, 12.6 percent in 2009 and 5.9 percent in 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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The bulk of Thiel’s losses last year came in April, June, September and November. The Clarium fund declined 6.5 percent in April, as losing bets in U.S. equities and overseas debt offset gains made in commodities, according to an investor letter. Two months later it slumped 7.7 percent through stocks and currencies.
The biggest losses came in September, when the fund slumped 8.4 percent on stock bets, according to a letter. Two months later Clarium dropped 7.8 percent because of currencies and fixed income.
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In October, the Clarium fund had a gross exposure to currencies of 33 percent, which increased to 45 percent the following month.