My New Hero

I agree with this guy but it is also a hell of a lot easier to say F the world when you dont have to worry about paying for basic needs.

True.

I think it is hilarious he is a CFA charterholder as well - Jeff Diermeier would be proud

Maybe he will get “Most Controversial CFA Charterholder of the Year” - like Dan Reingold did after he wrote Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst . . . haha

I hope this guy knows that he will probably never work in the industry again.

Nike Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I hope this guy knows that he will probably never > work in the industry again. Disagree. Money talks. With those kind of returns, there will always be people looking to him to manage their $$$. Who cares if he’s a d!ck if you feel he can make you good money.

volante99 said it so well that I wanted to see it in print again here: volante99 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Wow… this guy made a ton of money betting that > Americans would lose their homes, and he believes > that qualifies him to write a long diatribe on > everything from Dick Fuld to the legality of > marijuana. > > I mean, you’d think he was the first person to > make money betting against the market. Yes there > is an aristocratic society in America that has > more advantages in life. Thats capitalism, and > he’s a part of it. Get used to it > > Secondly, a lot of *normal* people work much > harder then bankers and hedge fund managers and > earn MUCH less. These people don’t have the luxury > of just deciding to pack things up whenever > they’re feeling cynical about their industry. Why > would you knock the very industry that allowed you > that luxury? > > So, he made a ton of money doing what was probably > extremely risky (800% gain? hello people). This is > no different than what all those “evil ivy league” > bankers were doing, only he just happened to be on > the right side of the fence. Big f-ing deal.

Reading comprehension.

Actually, let’s dissect volante99 allegedly saying it “so well,” according to tobias. volante99 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Wow… this guy made a ton of money betting that > Americans would lose their homes, and he believes > that qualifies him to write a long diatribe on > everything from Dick Fuld to the legality of > marijuana. - He was able to make those bets because there were idiots who didn’t have the required knowledge or intelligence to accurately discern and correctly value how bad their positions was relative to Lahde’s. The point about betting against people losing their homes is a related, but distinctly different one and is not pertinent. - Lahde implies that these idiots who went to expensive prep schools, ivy league undergrad, and professional schools don’t necessarily need to know the material - they only need to have a heartbeat to get the degree once they’re entrance is secured. That’s why we have total meltdown since getting to the top means a Harvard MBA instead of a deep understanding of finance. In a program like the CFA as opposed to, say, achieving an ivy league undegraduate degree in economics, you actually have to go against a blind cutoff and the general population, know the material sufficiently, and there is no “A for effort” - that’s why Lahde was able to find idiots to take the other side of his trade. - Dick Fuld was not an ivy leaguer. He went to U. Colorado (1969) for his undergraduate degree and NYU (1973) for his MBA. Although those institutions are excellent - with NYU (for the MBA) the more relevant one - they are generally not known as ivy league institutions. A quick google or wiki search would reveal these simple facts. - His reference to marijuana was simply a knock on those gaming the system to best ensure their profits. At the core, this was a broader characterization of our system of government, which is populated and heavily influenced by “idiots” from ivy leagues (paraphrased from him), not necessarily the more specific point of marijuana legalization. This is the reason for the reference to George Soros, which of course isn’t related to marijuana legalization. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > I mean, you’d think he was the first person to > make money betting against the market. Yes there > is an aristocratic society in America that has > more advantages in life. Thats capitalism, and > he’s a part of it. Get used to it - His reference to the aristocracy was not tied to capitalism, but rather to people who get big jobs due to their educational credentials - which in turn were due to their wealthy parents. This behavior, Lahde says, was the reason he could find people stupid enough to take the other side of this trades. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Secondly, a lot of *normal* people work much > harder then bankers and hedge fund managers and > earn MUCH less. - This goes off topic and is irrelevant. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > These people don’t have the luxury > of just deciding to pack things up whenever > they’re feeling cynical about their industry. Why > would you knock the very industry that allowed you > that luxury? - Irrelevant as well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > So, he made a ton of money doing what was probably > extremely risky (800% gain? hello people). - 800% gain does not necessarily imply his position was risky. For example, you can buy very far out-of-the-money call or put for pretty cheap and make a killing if the relevant probability distributions are much more kurtotic than the other side deems them to be. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This is > no different than what all those “evil ivy league” > bankers were doing, only he just happened to be on > the right side of the fence. Big f-ing deal. - You are implying his returns were due to his assuming the same level of risk as those people on the other side of his deal. This is incorrect. Refer to previous example. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thankfully(!), there are more people at your level of reasoning and reading comprehension ability, volante99, and in this case, one less person like Andrew Lahde, that I’m competing against as I make my living in the capital markets.

And it’s really clear there is no shortage of pricks.

damn, sublimity, you killed it!

The guy who said that he hates everything about the hedge fund industry is Mark Sellers from Sellers Capital.

Please simplicity, allow me to retort. I don’t have the time to respond to each criticism point by point, but I’ll try to give you a better idea of where I’m coming from here. I think it is a sad state of affairs when people prop up a guy like Lahde, who from what I gather with my lack of “reading comprehension”, really just made a wise bet and quit his job. This in my feeble mind is neither “cool”, heroic, nor original. Five employees at my former firm did the same thing but at least had the common decency NOT to write the old “f-you” email. As someone else on this board put it, it’s much easier to say f-you to the world when you don’t have to worry about money or responsibility. What I said was completely relevant because I place in much higher regard the guy who works 12-14 hours a day and CAN’T just up and quit his job (all joe six pack jokes aside). I don’t have time for quick buck artists like Lahde (or their political stance on our dependence on foreign oil for that matter). Beyond all the moral implications in his investment strategy(that’s right, I said it), I think it’s safe to assume an 800% return on a multi-million dollar portfolio implies a more than healthy amount of risk. I don’t care how many stupid people Lahde knows on Wall Street, what he did will never be anything more than a gamble (although I suppose you could argue that same logic about any investment). I have nothing against Lahde (besides wasting a half hour of my life on the subject). However, when people make a “big deal” out of him (which, lets be honest here, was the main intention of his email), it irks me. Frankly this mentality is much more concerning to me than Richie Rich getting into Swarthmore.