5-year and 10-year return below zero

According to gurufocus, following fund managers have a below-zero return for the last 5 AND the last 10 years. Not sure I believe that because there are quite a few illustrious names in here:

In 2009, didn’t their benchmark also have a negative 5 and 10 year return?

A lot of these are absolute return funds, so they are not benchmarked to the stock market, but to cash. But it is true that people still compare themselves to something like the S&P a lot.

Look at the rolling numbers. Point in time trailing 5 and ten year returns are completely time period dependent, especially if they are bookended by particularly poor relative performance. 2012 YTD through June has been tough in general, although I suspect QTD 3Q2012 is probably much more rewarding for active management.

I just glanced at the profile for Bridgewater and it’s inaccurate. Not to mention that website sucks to navigate. As far as I can tell, this is exactly like www.celebritynetworth.com. Fun but a complete waste of time.

Is it any surprise that a bunch of funds whose managers all have 9-digit net worth due to fees might be bad value?

i’m not surprised at all…

I don’t know who Glenn Greenberg is, but I’m skeptical of any fund named Brave Warrior Capital. Really?

I’m also not sure I believe these numbers.

This has got to be BS of the highest order. Dalio…the guy who puts up 15+% annual on a regular basis had a 0% return over the last ten years?

Yeah, a quick google search and I found all this info to be BS. My best guess is this site is using the holding info from the quarterly 13F filings and calculating the returns as if the fund held each security for the full quarter.

That site has gone full retard.

I agree. Joel Greenblatt, has a negative return over a 10 year period? Hard to believe.

why did ed lampert ever buy Sears?

I do like Carl’s picture though.

Carl Icahn

Exactly. They might have had great returns when they first started the fund, which gave them great exposure. They’re living off that hype and can get away with charging what they want.

i’m wrong…i looked at the list in greater detail, no way they’re all negative…

Ehh I would have to look up total returns since inception for these funds, but many of these managers have returned 30, 40, 50% annually over significant stretches of time. There is no legal activity anywhere in the world where you can achieve that kind of performance outside of cheesy internet starts up during a bubble. Most hedge funds are not a great value for LPs, but there are clearly some great values within this if you look at historic performance over a long time period. Are you seriously telling me that if you had a time machine and could go back to the origination of Quantfum Fund as a ground floor investor that you would turn that down?

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which one of these guys have returned more than 30% consistently over a long stretch (+5yrs)…nevermind 50% i know they didn’t…

Greenblatt did. Look at page 271 in his book.

Dalio must be doing 20%+, and keep in mind BW is a mega billions fund AND he runs the hardest strategy - global macro.

EDIT: Actually greenblatt didn’t do 30+ for 5 years straight. In a 10 yr stretch, he hit 30%+ every year except for years in which he hit 29.4% and 28.5% giving an annualized rate of 50%.

Now granted, he is pretty much the most famous SS investor. I don’t know how many people have matched that.

You still have to determine 2 things though: 1) The 5 or 10-year performance is not random, and 2) If it’s not random, whatever advantage they had will persist until the future. Even if you have a great idea, people will copy it after a while and drive down your performance. I don’t know - maybe it’s because I’m not on the buy side, but I still haven’t convinced myself that my money belongs in someone’s 2/20 plan.