Buffett wins $1M decade-old bet that the S&P500 would outperform hedgefunds • Hacker News Board

Re: Buffett wins $1M decade-old bet that the S&P500 would outperform hedgefunds

#321

Post by wpietri » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 11:12 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #316

wpietri wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would totally accept that bet. The closest bet we have right now is bet 11: “At least one human alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150.” http://longbets.org/11/ The tricky part is coming up with a clear agreement about what "cure" and "death" mean here. But there's a lot of good discussion around e.g., the extropians, so I think a solid bet could be created.

Does "Brain in a Jar" count? How about a Ghost in the Shell? More likely this is a bet on if Cyrogenics finally works out.

You mean for that bet? Good question, and not one I'm likely to have to answer. But from the arguments, the spirit seems to be about traditional meat-brain-in-meat-body life.

Or do you mean for your own? This is between you and the person you bet with. If you have a firm opinion, definitely find somebody on the opposite side and see if you can put together a bet.

Re: Buffett wins $1M decade-old bet that the S&P500 would outperform hedgefunds

#322

Post by mercutio2 » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 11:30 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #314

mercutio2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish this were true of most states in the USA. It’s certainly true in many parts of Europe. I don’t have an especially authoritative source, and the first map I found was made seven years ago, but I don’t think things have changed much: http://jalopnik.com/5501615/left-lane-passing-laws-a-state-b... Only the green states would map to “don’t cruise in the left lane”; the laws in the majority only say you shouldn’t d…

That map is out of date. Oregon is now in the green group.

Good to know!

Re: Buffett wins $1M decade-old bet that the S&P500 would outperform hedgefunds

#323

Post by dsacco » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 5:29 PM UTC

batmansmk wrote: post #307

dsacco wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You mention that plenty of individual funds did beat the S&P. This is straight an apocryphal anecdotal fallacy. No, no it isn't. Individual funds have beaten the market for 20 - 30 years at a time. You won't even hear about most of them unless you really go digging, for a combination of reasons: 1. Funds that actually, consistently beat the market quickly find themselves in possession of more money than they know w…

An anecdotal fallacy is when you cite a particular elements ("individual funds") to justify against general statistics (the global index). "My cousin won the lottery, so buying lottery tickets is for sure a valid investment!" is an example of such fallacy. Quoting 10 examples don't change the fact that it is globally, a bad idea to invest in a Hedge fund, in general. You are saying there is a underground, invisible b…

This isn't an anecdotal fallacy, because those returns are empirically demonstrable and proven. Moreover, I agree that investing in hedge funds is bad in general - I've never claimed otherwise. My position in this thread and others like it is simply that a fair number of hedge funds do consistently beat the market even if they represent a small minority of the overall industry.

I'm also not establishing a conspiracy here. There's nothing underground or invisible about this industry, and I've worked in it peripherally myself. It's only under the radar in the sense that most Americans can name the president but not most other high ranking members of the cabinet: the spotlight is not on them. If you go digging, you'll find them. They just don't typically attract the same attention firms like Bridgewater do because they don't typically seek more capital for its own sake just to spin off more funds.