http://www.iimagazine.com/Alpha/Articles/2236376/TODAY/Merritt_Graves_Undergrad_Hedge_Fund_Prodigy.html Could Merritt Graves be the next Ken Griffin? Wearing jeans, sneakers and a backpack, his hair rumpled and his T-shirt turned inside out to hide the logo, Merritt Graves looked like any other carefree undergrad as he strolled across the bucolic Pomona College campus in Claremont, California, climbed the steps of the Carnegie Building and took a seat in class. If attendance at his energy economics and policy course was a little thin that April morning, the professor joked, it might have been the fallout from the previous week’s midterm exam. Graves, who got a B+ on the test, pulled out a notebook and began copying key provisions of the Natural Gas Act of 1938 from the blackboard, along with the diagram of the flow of gas from the ground to the end consumer. The course is one of two that Graves is taking this semester, both electives for his major in environmental analysis. “One of the key institutions the Founding Fathers agreed with in the U.S. Constitution was free trade,” said the professor, John Jurewitz, a senior economist with electric utility Southern California Edison, as he dove into a lecture on the history of natural-gas regulation. Gradually, Graves’s attention began to drift. He glanced discreetly at his iPhone, tapping the screen. But Graves wasn’t texting friends about a big night out or checking status updates on Facebook. The 23-year-old, who tracks nearly 100 trading positions on his phone’s Web browser, was monitoring the stock market, which by that time had been open for more than three hours. This college student has an unlikely full-time job: He runs a $4.7 million long-short equity hedge fund.
almost sounds like the 1999 tech bubble to me. everyone in college was going to be the next bill gates. i guess the hf bubble still has more room to pop.
Wow. His family handed him $4.7 million. Impressive.
“Graves could have finished college, joined a hedge fund as a junior analyst and worked his way up the ranks before going out on his own. In fact, his parents might have preferred that path. But it was never an option. “Would a hedge fund have paid me $2 million over the past two years?” he asks rhetorically.” Guess he never heard of a place called F-i-d-e-l-i-t-y.
Life isn’t fair.
i hate ppl like him
Why all the hate? If you read the article his parents didn’t give him any money. He basically borrowed a few grand from a friend and parlayed it into a couple million dollars. His AUM amount to his own funds (not his parents’ money) and a few investors. He’s like Tim Sykes except he appears to be much less of a douche.
I agree, kudos to him. It sounds like he has made several good trades, not just the housing bubble. With the publicity from this article and some professional marketing asset gathering could go pretty well.
Not that Graves is motivated by wealth. His clothes are often secondhand, and he sometimes shops with coupons. He still drives the same 2000 Pontiac Grand Am that he had in high school and uses his trading profits to fund a business called Farmscape, which helps homeowners create their own organic vegetable gardens. Unlike Sykes this kid is for real, hes a professional not just some crazy day-trader.
adehbone Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Not that Graves is motivated by wealth. His > clothes are often secondhand, and he sometimes > shops with coupons. He still drives the same 2000 > Pontiac Grand Am that he had in high school and > uses his trading profits to fund a business called > Farmscape, which helps homeowners create their own > organic vegetable gardens. Mr. Ringo is an educated man, now I really hate him.
is Tim Sykes still trading? whatever happened to his returns?
Wow this kid is really something. Cool
Sounds like a good kid, I hope he continues to do well.
1 - wasn’t Timothy Sykes a superstar hedge fund manager? 2 - didn’t Ken Griffin and Citadel get PWNED during 2008? 3 - Simons, Soros, and Paulson PWNS all
Trading with an Iphone. Woo. Anyone see a problem there. Anyone? Can I give the guy 2 million to trade for me too? Where do I sign up? “Would a hedge fund have paid me $2 million over the past two years?” he asks rhetorically." Hmmm $2 million profit on $4.7 million AUM. He sure ain’t no relative value trader is he… Poof - that’s the sound of it all going up in smoke.
Nothing against the kid, but someone has to be in the far right of the “Luck” Bell curve spectrum. I mean people do win lotteries right? Good for him, just as long as he dosen’t turn in to Maddoff jr if things turn south.
There is no way he made those kinds of returns with the allocation parameters told in his article. No position over 8%. He probably got those returns betting on a few penny stocks and now he is taking back the risk and actually managing a fund.
Muddahudda Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Trading with an Iphone. Woo. Anyone see a problem > there. Anyone? Can I give the guy 2 million to > trade for me too? Where do I sign up? > > “Would a hedge fund have paid me $2 million over > the past two years?” he asks rhetorically." Hmmm > $2 million profit on $4.7 million AUM. He sure > ain’t no relative value trader is he… > > Poof - that’s the sound of it all going up in > smoke. I kind of assumed the $2MM was the trading profits on his own capital…
eureka Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Muddahudda Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Trading with an Iphone. Woo. Anyone see a > problem > > there. Anyone? Can I give the guy 2 million to > > trade for me too? Where do I sign up? > > > > “Would a hedge fund have paid me $2 million > over > > the past two years?” he asks rhetorically." > Hmmm > > $2 million profit on $4.7 million AUM. He sure > > ain’t no relative value trader is he… > > > > Poof - that’s the sound of it all going up in > > smoke. > > I kind of assumed the $2MM was the trading profits > on his own capital… No sh*t sherlock. ‘He sure ain’t no relative value trader is he…’ means he took excessive risk… directional, big bets. The article says he is market neutral. My a*s The guy already lost everything twice. Everything about it shouts blow up.
I admire this kid, but I wouldn’t put my investments within 1,000 miles of his fund. Obviously, a lot of this was luck–I’d rather trust my investing money with myself and my other friends in real estate who can take calculated, controlled risks with big money returns, but returns that won’t go from $5,000 to $5 million.