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Comment by andi999 | Hacker News Reader

So Jane Street and James Simons do not exist?

Jane Street and RenTech are very different institutions compared to something like Vanguard or Fidelity. They aren't accessable to retail investors/traders, they have different goals, and methods.

Nope, you're moving the goalposts now. The grandparent claimed that active investing is not a good choice for _anybody_. So a single example like RenTech is sufficient to disprove that claim.

> The grandparent claimed that active investing is not a good choice for _anybody_. So a single example like RenTech is sufficient to disprove that claim.

Correct.

Too many passive index fund investors on this thread refuse to acknowledge that many hedge funds/proprietary trading firms consistently beat the S&P over 20-30+ years.

VTI and VOO are only 9% and 13% since inception in ~2001. Top quant firms like Citadel, Renaissance, Jane Street attain 20-40% annually after fees, over 20+ years.

On average, hedge funds underperform. But a UHNW investor is not investing in average hedge funds. They’re investing time-tested S&P-outperforming hedge funds.

Jane Street is primarily a market maker I believe, not something an individual or even a small institution can just go out and do

It probably depends how active and how sophisticated. (And how lucky.) Certainly there are large sophisticated endowments and investment funds that don't simply stick everything in an index fund and call it a day. And many do get better than S&P 500 returns. After all, you need to decide what investments to buy and hold and, presumably, make adjustments over time even if turnover is relatively low.

There's always winners of the lottery but statically it wont be you.

1) Jane Street isn't that successful. 2) RenTech spends billions every year on compute, data and hiring the smartest people in the world.

The average person could never compete with RenTech.

> Jane Street isn't that successful.

Their historical record is very good.

> The average person could never compete with RenTech.

Grandparent claimed that active investing is not good for _anybody_. A single example (like RenTech) is sufficient to disprove that claim. If you want to move the goalposts to "the average person", then it'll be an entirely different discussion.

I think it's pretty obvious that the parent is talking about the average investor.

Yes but it's also a fair point that a lot of actively-managed mutual funds out there don't beat low-cost index funds.

> I think it's pretty obvious that the parent is talking about the average investor.

Really? Because this is what the (grand)parent said:

"Whether you're an individual trader or a billionaire hedge fund manager, active strategies lose out to passive ones in the long run."

Clearly grandparent was not talking solely about the average investor.

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