Had a few too many notes about @joelmcohen’s tweets about emerging managers not to share some thoughts: My biggest investment pet peeve is when managers play a game and don’t understand the base rates of the game they are playing.

My thoughts on the David Swensen's passing:

Hail to the Chief (Investment Officer)

David Swensen was my first mentor in the investment business. As I reflected on his passing this week, I felt into how much of an impact he had on my career and life. Plenty will be written about him in the coming days, justifiably sharing his innovative and successful approach, mentoring of current non-profit investing leaders, and influence on the world of institutional investing.

Irresistible to leave this moment alone - a thread to share some investment lessons:

1/ Size matters.
Melvin entered 2021 circa $12 billion in AUM and runs a highly levered balance sheet. That’s a lot of short exposure to move around if needed. 2/ WSB/Reddit captured a market inefficiency.

Stocks are not supposed to have over 100% short interest. Naked short selling is illegal. This set-up should never happen. Kudos to those who took advantage.

How I Invest, part 2...offering up my personal portfolio full transparency of line items. Welcome your feedback:

1/ Core public equity (65%)
US (50%)
PSH: Pershing Square Holdings
BRK: Berkshire Hathaway
Growth basket (GOOG,AMZN,SHOP) 2/ Core public equity (65%)
Emerging Markets (10%)
WCM Emerging Markets
Value oriented ETF

Global/International Equity (5%)
WCM Focused Growth International
Jonathan Tepper's Prevatt Capital
@jtepper2

The wisdom and thesis of Dan Rasmussen (@verdadcap) in a tweet storm of quotes from our conversation (FM EP.15) @verdadcap 1. In times of easy money, a lot of stupid things work. A lot of unprofitable companies see massive increases in stock price. A lot of bad ideas get funded. Some of those bad ideas turn out to be good ideas.

Sobering thoughts on hedge funds from Jason Karp (FM, EP.12)... “A lot of the elements as an industry have become hyper-commoditized and hyper-competitive, most of the easy alpha is gone. At least in the duration that most people were used to.”

- Jason Karp (FM, EP.12)

Here’s another from the front lines - allocators rarely scrutinize distressed debt manager performance for alpha and factors the same way they do with public equity strategies. Among the sub-sectors of hedge fund and hybrid private equity strategies, allocators still embrace distressed debt investing.

Attended Goldman’s hedge fund conference today. Some thoughts from the front lines... The conference featured a few dozen fundamental hedge fund managers presenting to allocators.

Long-short equity = the single most scrutinized sub sector of active management.

Going into the archives for the best takeaways from episodes... “Anybody that said nothing lasts forever hasn’t been in a bad private equity fund.”

- Karl Scheer (EP.74).

Thanks @jfc_3_