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I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

hindenburgresearch.com

321–330 of 430 posts

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#321
post #59

I've ironically lost more money the more closely I've paid attention to my investments because I was naively confident in the market's ability (or as I've come to suspect, willingness) to react to evidence of fraud. The amount of deceit put out into the world and gobbled up, on purpose, in business is obscene and seriously depressing. The magnitude of damage to psyches and thus economies that anyone acting in a fraud…

> I've ironically lost more money the more closely I've paid attention to my investments Money Magazine a few years ago compared various investment strategies in stocks. The #2 best performing one was investing in the S&P 500. The #1 best performing strategy was the "dead man strategy". The dead man strategy comes into play when the investor dies, and his estate gets frozen until it winds its way through the courts.…

That's worked for me, for well over 30 years.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#323
post #96

"just feeling like it" seems insufficient explanation for dismantling a successful organization rather than transitioning it they just completed their "pipeline of ideas" with "the last Ponzi cases" - seems like a surprisingly clean and abrupt end for an investigative organization the team members are "brilliant" and "family to me" but heis disbanding rather than transitioning leadership He mentions some team members…

> In May 2022, Hindenburg took a short position in Twitter, Inc. following the announcement of its acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk. After Musk's attempted termination of the deal, Hindenburg took a significant long position on Twitter, betting against Musk on the acquisition to close. Something about that individual coming to power along with the other oligarchs? The coming political climate looks to be one where…

>The coming political climate looks to be one where money is more important than the rule of law (even more so than usual), which might be bad news for a business like that.

I think this is the correct answer for explaining the timing of this announcement at least. It's one thing to use your media to fight your short sellers, it's another thing when you become the government and start fighting your shortsellers with the entire political and "judicial" apparatus in order to keep the market irrational. Or force it to accept the new reality.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they profit? There must be a cost somewhere? Another reply mentioned spreads - still a cost (you lose money when you trade).

the sell order flow to market makers who gobble up the other side of bad retail trades

Which means that your cost is market maker's spreads instead of fees. Still a cost to you.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#325
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> P.S. If you are chasing something you think you want or need, or are doubting whether you are enough, take a minute and give this a listen. It had a big impact on me at a pivotal time. He shared something that helped him at a pivotal time. Your expectations are your own. :)

The right music at the right time can be transformative.

I was working at a dead-end IT job that was eating away at me because the company was a terrible fit, and I couldn't help but wonder if I could put my skills to better use than clearing paper jams and running mail merge reports. But the easy path was to just keep doing the same thing every day.

One day on the way in I was listening to Jonathan Coulton's "A Talk With George" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXk5dXYw728) and it kicked me in the face with:

  Don't live another day unless you make it count
  There's someone else that you're supposed to be
  There's something deep inside of you that still wants out
  And shame on you if you don't set it free
And that was the day I quit.

That being said, I had the same reaction to the link at the bottom of that post; I recognize anything can be transformative to the right person at the right time, but I struggled to identify the message in an instrumental DJ set.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#326
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1 is a 10x winner out of 10 stocks, 1 being a 10x winner is an absolutely rarity and the fact that you would manage to pick it is pure luck tbh.

Oh there's more luck required than that. You have to get lucky many times to win at a 10x stock. - You have to be lucky enough to find it when it's cheap. - You have to be lucky enough to hold on to it even if it loses money - You have to be lucky enough to not sell it when it's at only 5x and hold off for the top - you have to be lucky enough to have bought enough initially that the return is meaningful to you These…

The 4th point (bought enough that the return is meaningful) is the killer one. There’s always “that guy” that brags about buying TSLA or NVDA in 2015 and having 100x his money. Then it turns out he only bought like $500 worth. Sure, $50K isn’t nothing, but it’s not going to be meaningful to the retirement of someone making tech worker wages.

Of course, the reason he didn’t buy more was because he knew it was a lottery ticket and putting most of his money in the S&P500 in his 401k was obviously more prudent.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with you 100%, I did the same simulations and found the same result. I would suggest a step beyond though, because rebalancing your portfolio is fun year 1-5, but not so fun year 5-20: have a look at e.g. Vanguard retirement target funds. Essentially, it's an ETF with a rebalancing rule included for a specific target date. For instance if you buy the target 2050 (your hypothetical retirement age), the ETF rebal…

You still need to be invested in equities at retirement otherwise inflation just eats away at the value of the cash

That’s why these target funds go down to ~50% stocks [edit: at the target date] not 0.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS disallows wash sale deductions if you reinvest in a substantially similar investment within 30 days. I'm not an IRS agent and have no idea what they mean by substantially similar. You might want to talk to your tax accountant.

> substantially similar investment They actually use the word 'identical' instead of 'similar', if that matters. It seems to be a grey area with ETFs, and I'm not a financial advisor, so won't make any further claims. > You might want to talk to your tax accountant. Absolutely agreed. You can also just let a reputable robo do it for you if you don't have the time or energy for it, there are multiple. It is what I end…

Indeed, the wording is “substantially identical”, which is important. 2 different ETFs that track similar, but not identical indices (e.g. S&P500 vs Russell 1000 large cap, for example) are clearly not substantially identical, and make great tax-loss harvesting pairs. There’s tons of case law, opinions from tax experts, and automated tax-loss harvesting tools from a variety of brokers that agree with this viewpoint.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#329
post #295
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My target date 2050 funds have performed 50% less than my S&P 500 and like 30/40% less than my total stock market fund.

You mean VFIFX? What a disaster. My retirement plan put me in that until I realized investment advice for young people is a tax on the inexperienced and vulnerable. VFFSX (S&P 500) does 2x better returns every time. I feel guilty saying it on Hacker News. Like pension funds I bet Vanguard is one of these so-called LPs who give money to VCs like Y Combinator to help ivy league kids follow their dreams. Without these h…

> VFFSX (S&P 500) does 2x better returns every time

US large cap has certainly recently outperformed the other parts of the target date fund (international stocks, bonds). But there is certainly no guarantee that it will happen "every time". In the last 10 years, US equity has been the best overall performing asset class for the past decade but 7 out of those 10 years at least one other category outperformed it: https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/insights/blackrock-inves...

> Like pension funds I bet Vanguard is one of these so-called LPs who give money to VCs like Y Combinator to help ivy league kids follow their dreams.

You can look up the holdings of VFIFX or any other Vanguard fund. There is no private equity or private credit.

Re: I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still need to be invested in equities at retirement otherwise inflation just eats away at the value of the cash

That’s why these target funds go down to ~50% stocks [edit: at the target date] not 0.

At least at Vanguard the final stage of target date funds is ~30% stocks: https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-fun...
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