Seems like a case of survivorship bias. Unclear what this guy is doing that's particularly unique.
He invested a lot in Amazon and Tesla, relatively early. Out of everyone investing in the time period, someone was bound to be holding the most of some of the stocks that do crazy things.
Having Asperger's, starting as a CPA, not using value investing, reading Christensen... I doubt any of these are gonna shake up institutional investing.
Using some simple math (and somewhat inaccurate math), let's calculate the chance of the null hypothesis being true: he has no skill and it is just luck, assuming 10% annualized volatility for the market and 8% annualized return. By my calculation, over the six year period, there's a 4.82e-18 chance that his returns are due to luck and the null hypothesis is true. Of course I'm simplifying a lot, but I think you get the idea.
Also, you don't need to do anything "particularly unique" to generate very impressive returns. No firm (besides maybe RenTec) is doing anything that is truly out there and on another level: employees join and leave, ideas get passed around, etc. And yet, there are many top tier firms that end up hitting out of the park, year after year.
People on HN always make these cheap throwaway comments about "expert coin-flippers" and "survivorship bias" when talking about finance. I'm not sure exactly why, but I think it comes from disdain for finance. I also think that the idea that some people are just better at generating wealth through the markets can be uncomfortable.
Anyways, the chance of his returns being luck is extremely small, any which way you cut it.
The article does not claim uniqueness, but focuses on the difference between basing investments on exceptionalism rather than value.
Stand out hedge fund performances typically don't translate even to the same or similar hedge funds at different times let alone scaling to the point of 'gonna shake up institutional investing'.
Yes yes, survivorship bias, but the problem is actually interesting in several aspects:
1. On an individual level, it's impossible to distinguish between survivorship bias and doing things right. If you are the surviving one, did you do things differently or did you just get lucky? In a coin-toss competition, the answer is obvious. When it comes to stocks, it's not.
Because:
2. The general (academic) consensus to differentiate between luck and skill when it comes to investing is: Can you be profitable for a long period of time? But do you really need to prove yourself over and over that you have the skill? What if you had the skill only once, to predict one certain event and have tremendous gains with it? Apparently, this is considered "luck" and not "skill" when it comes to investing. Which I find odd.
Add the nonlinear utility of money: Your first million makes the biggest impact on your life, especially if you earn it early in life. Buying an ETF sets you up for a good retirement (probably, maybe), but the GME stock picking YOLO might put you on a different trajectory.
3. When it comes to finance and investing, we all know the academic view: passive investing / buy & hold is king, you can't predict the winners. All true of course, but the problem is: there is no resolution to this. You can say that, in hindsight, buy & hold returned X% on average over the last 50 years, but have to warn that "past performance is no indication for future performance". And ultimately, you can calculate your true performance only if you realize profits to do something with it in life or if you are about to die.
So, on an individual level, you have two choices:
- Buy and hold a passive index fund and hope that the performance of the last X years is indicative for the future performance, because that's how the stock market works (or whatever).
- Expose yourself to luck/chance/positive black swans by doing some skilled or unskilled stock picking that has potential to put you on another trajectory in life.
- Expose yourself to luck/chance/positive black swans by doing some skilled or unskilled stock picking that has potential to put you on another trajectory in life.
If the goals to expose yourself to luck, why not just purchase lottery tickets then?
By definition the median investor makes what the total market return is. Something like VTI is up 25% since Jan 1 2020. If tech investors outperformed a lot, there are lots of boomers who haven't kept up.
> Today the online juggernaut is the most conventional — and most popular — hedge fund stock in the world, but when Alsin first invested in it the smart money was skeptical. After all, the company wasn’t profitable.
If you look at AMZN's stock price, he timed it pretty well: he presumably bought in around $200 before it really started taking off. If he had bought in 5 years earlier, that would have netted "only" an extra 100%.
Institutional Investor is targeted at people who work in finance, and I think "early" is meant in the sense of being early to trade a particular stock or theme that later becomes popular. So being "early" to GME would mean a month ago, not early relative to the IPO.
And in the game where "anyone could make money", they did the most of all the funds that were assessed. If that doesn't count for something, what does?
[+] [-] elefanten|5 years ago|reply
He invested a lot in Amazon and Tesla, relatively early. Out of everyone investing in the time period, someone was bound to be holding the most of some of the stocks that do crazy things.
Having Asperger's, starting as a CPA, not using value investing, reading Christensen... I doubt any of these are gonna shake up institutional investing.
[+] [-] smabie|5 years ago|reply
Also, you don't need to do anything "particularly unique" to generate very impressive returns. No firm (besides maybe RenTec) is doing anything that is truly out there and on another level: employees join and leave, ideas get passed around, etc. And yet, there are many top tier firms that end up hitting out of the park, year after year.
People on HN always make these cheap throwaway comments about "expert coin-flippers" and "survivorship bias" when talking about finance. I'm not sure exactly why, but I think it comes from disdain for finance. I also think that the idea that some people are just better at generating wealth through the markets can be uncomfortable.
Anyways, the chance of his returns being luck is extremely small, any which way you cut it.
[+] [-] TimTheTinker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0llusk|5 years ago|reply
Stand out hedge fund performances typically don't translate even to the same or similar hedge funds at different times let alone scaling to the point of 'gonna shake up institutional investing'.
[+] [-] WA|5 years ago|reply
1. On an individual level, it's impossible to distinguish between survivorship bias and doing things right. If you are the surviving one, did you do things differently or did you just get lucky? In a coin-toss competition, the answer is obvious. When it comes to stocks, it's not.
Because:
2. The general (academic) consensus to differentiate between luck and skill when it comes to investing is: Can you be profitable for a long period of time? But do you really need to prove yourself over and over that you have the skill? What if you had the skill only once, to predict one certain event and have tremendous gains with it? Apparently, this is considered "luck" and not "skill" when it comes to investing. Which I find odd.
Add the nonlinear utility of money: Your first million makes the biggest impact on your life, especially if you earn it early in life. Buying an ETF sets you up for a good retirement (probably, maybe), but the GME stock picking YOLO might put you on a different trajectory.
3. When it comes to finance and investing, we all know the academic view: passive investing / buy & hold is king, you can't predict the winners. All true of course, but the problem is: there is no resolution to this. You can say that, in hindsight, buy & hold returned X% on average over the last 50 years, but have to warn that "past performance is no indication for future performance". And ultimately, you can calculate your true performance only if you realize profits to do something with it in life or if you are about to die.
So, on an individual level, you have two choices:
- Buy and hold a passive index fund and hope that the performance of the last X years is indicative for the future performance, because that's how the stock market works (or whatever).
- Expose yourself to luck/chance/positive black swans by doing some skilled or unskilled stock picking that has potential to put you on another trajectory in life.
[+] [-] Cicero22|5 years ago|reply
If the goals to expose yourself to luck, why not just purchase lottery tickets then?
[+] [-] brianmtully|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fspeech|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] u678u|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielMcLaury|5 years ago|reply
Amazon was founded in 1994 and had its IPO in 1997 during the first dot com boom. Did they do any research for this article at all?
[+] [-] Clewza313|5 years ago|reply
If you look at AMZN's stock price, he timed it pretty well: he presumably bought in around $200 before it really started taking off. If he had bought in 5 years earlier, that would have netted "only" an extra 100%.
[+] [-] yellowstuff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakupovic|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ketamine__|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdmoreira|5 years ago|reply
anyone can make money in a bull market. You just buy on hype and sell on higher hype. It’s called momentum trading.
Call me when he beat the market for 40 years and I'll be impressed.
[+] [-] vasco|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abraxas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robinjhuang|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0llusk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] somjeed|5 years ago|reply