Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns • Hacker News Board

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#131

Post by dumbass123 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

padobson wrote: post #65

thedevil wrote: post #47

Around 2008, I read some public filings by banks. I made only two back-of-the-napkin adjustments: 1) I combined off-balance sheet assets and liabilities into the balance sheet, and 2) I changed the expected % losses to approximately that of Wells Fargo. With those two simple adjustments, I saw that some big banks were in the hole by (combined) tens of billions of dollars. The market prices for these banks made it cle…

Are there any possible holes in the making you see now? I was curious for a while if crypto was going to pose a systemic risk, but the total market cap[0] was never really high enough. [0] https://coinmarketcap.com/

The market cap of Crypto doesn't really have much to do with a systemic risk. System Risks, like what we saw from certain mortgage backed securities, arose from investors thinking something was safe when it really wasn't safe. There isn't really anyone professional who thinks Crytos are a low risk asset. The way certain mortgage backed securities were advertised, professional investors thought they were low risk and dumped a large amount of money into them. Banks and other investors also structured different products that also depended on them (with the assumption that they were low risk). In the end, we found out they got the math wrong and those investments weren't really low risk. That's what created a systemic risk.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#132

Post by kernelPan1c » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

I wonder how Rice got this data.

The more interesting story is that if you can get this data (MITM or some other means), you could front run a fund by figuring out who they’re researching.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#133

Post by kusmi » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 8:52 PM UTC

I tried to get bulk data from EDGAR a while back. Turns out bulk data acquisition has been turfed to a third party, which charges for downloads. This is supposed to be federal free data, I was so pissed off. I am still pissed off.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#134

Post by buddylw » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 8:58 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #95

gameswithgo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there were less political intervention into financial markets then solid financial analysis would win almost every time What empirical evidence exists to support this belief?

My understanding is that if it weren't for TARP several more publicly traded investment banks would have collapsed not to mention wider collateral damage in the market.

Most agree that TARP was necessary, but QE2, QE3, and very low interest rates appear to have done little more than inflate asset markets and increase debt. They are trying to unwind that now, but falling back to the mean with this much excess is not likely to go well. We left the cast on way, way too long.

What's done is done. It'll prove out either way in the next few years.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#135

Post by thedevil » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:18 PM UTC

ram_rar wrote: post #121

thedevil wrote: post #47

Around 2008, I read some public filings by banks. I made only two back-of-the-napkin adjustments: 1) I combined off-balance sheet assets and liabilities into the balance sheet, and 2) I changed the expected % losses to approximately that of Wells Fargo. With those two simple adjustments, I saw that some big banks were in the hole by (combined) tens of billions of dollars. The market prices for these banks made it cle…

assuming your account was FDIC insured. then why even bother taking out money less than minimum FDIC assured sum.

My more pessimistic estimates put the losses at more than the FDIC had at the time and I have no idea what happens when the FDIC runs out of money.

It probably wasn't rational but I was really scared.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#136

Post by ikeboy » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:32 PM UTC

wgerard wrote: post #75

bckygldstn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated data ingestion doesn't come for free. It's an ongoing effort to keep on top of new sources and schema changes, and the amount of effort scales with the number of sources. I'd guess that's the value you were providing for them.

Oh sure, no doubt. It makes sense to spend $10 a month on something if it saves you 10 hours of time and you can potentially make $10 million from it. I was mostly just surprised at how quick the process was. Hedge funds are much more afraid of missing out on something than they are of paying a monthly fee to someone. That might sound a bit silly (what business isn't afraid of missing out on something?), but that's d…

I hope you were charging at least $499/month, if not go read everything patio11 has ever written on pricing.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#137

Post by ikeboy » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:36 PM UTC

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #90

sseveran wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The reasons for having their own datacenters are either legacy or needing some sort of specialized hardware that is not available at a cloud provider. Mana which is a new pure quant fund uses AWS extensively.

> Why? Because you don't want anyone to have access to your code and data. If you found out that Facebook is running on AWS, wouldn't you find that strange?

Snapchat runs on Google. Dropbox ran on aws for a long time. Instagram was on aws before Facebook bought them. Netflix has basically everything but the actual video content on AWS.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#138

Post by allenz » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #95

gameswithgo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there were less political intervention into financial markets then solid financial analysis would win almost every time What empirical evidence exists to support this belief?

My understanding is that if it weren't for TARP several more publicly traded investment banks would have collapsed not to mention wider collateral damage in the market.

True, but "politics distort prices" does not imply that "without politics, prices are accurate", which is what you claimed.

Bubbles existed before Keynesian policies.

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#139

Post by x2f10 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

thedevil wrote: post #47

Around 2008, I read some public filings by banks. I made only two back-of-the-napkin adjustments: 1) I combined off-balance sheet assets and liabilities into the balance sheet, and 2) I changed the expected % losses to approximately that of Wells Fargo. With those two simple adjustments, I saw that some big banks were in the hole by (combined) tens of billions of dollars. The market prices for these banks made it cle…

I'm starting a career in accounting and would appreciate a recommendation or two on what outside-of-school resources you used to better your understanding. Recommendations?

Re: Hedge-fund managers that do the most research will post the best returns

#140

Post by thaumasiotes » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 10:47 PM UTC

chrisabrams wrote: post #16

In other news, students who study the most for SATs will post the best scores.

> In other news, students who study the most for SATs will post the best scores.

Does this actually reflect some experience of yours? It certainly contradicts the existing research on "test prep".