>The Medallion fund is considered to be one of the most successful hedge funds ever. It has averaged a 71.8% annual return, before fees, from 1994 through mid-2014.[33] The fund has been closed to outside investors since 1993[34] and is available only to current and past employees and their families.
This number has been cited often. This is not to be skeptical rather to crunch the claim:
Suppose Rentech started with $50M AUM in 1994 (reasonable assumption for a small hedge fund); 50M * (1.718)^20 = 2.51 Trillion in 2014. What am I missing here?
If you had a 10% return one year and a 90% return the next, for an average of 50%, your total principal would increase by 1.1 * 1.9 = 2.09. If you calculate by the average instead (1.5 * 1.5 = 2.25) the rate of return is higher, and that error may have compounded in your calculation.
The Medallion Fund does not compound... the return is not re-invested into the principal but disseminated to investors annually. The strategy they play only works up to a certain level of capital.
They have a maximum capacity of a few billion dollars in the fund. Every year they return the money they made so the fund stays the same size. Strategies don't scale indefinitely