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We are launching Friday Only Club!

Oscar de la Renta chose not to show at New York Fashion Week and instead streamed on Amazon. Is Amazon a suitable forum for a luxury brand? CEO Alex Bolen said, "I'm not sure. But we have to experiment with new ways to get our story out." https://lnkd.in/g4rZMxyb We launched our funds when Covid started and with the halt in travel and tough fund raising environment for emerging managers, we focused on performance and experimented with new ways to reach out to allocators, namely Linkedin posts and YouTube videos which can now be binge-watched on  www.quantflix.com . True, some people say that with the positive fund returns last year for both our long-only equity and multi-strategy funds, and the China fund outperforming its benchmark by its annualized double-digit aim, it was expected that we would pass the $100m mark. But when times are bad, most new investment monies went to well-known funds that are much bigger with a marketing budget that we cannot afford. So every lit...
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Slam Dunk

Some people thought I painted a picture that I posted previously on LinkedIn. Sorry guys I'm actually not perfect and I'm posting a painting I did at the company's art jamming session to demonstrate why I have to continue working as a fund manager.


The picture is called Self Portrait inspired by Nara. Doesn't look like me but it is supposed to, or reflect my spiritual self. I received a small Nara print some twenty years ago when I was working in Tokyo and I thought why is this thing that looks like children's art so expensive. Having been a bronze medalist at the Tokyo International Children's Art Competition when I was 10, I believed I could paint as well as Yoshitomo Nara. But as you can tell from the outcome, my artistic skills peaked at 10 and went downhill rapidly like some inverse log graph.

Yesterday someone from a family office congratulated me on the positive performance of our ASV and BAA funds this year and asked "so do you manage the funds all by yourself?" I went "of course not, you probably shouldn't invest in the funds if it's just me".

I'm an ex-investment banker, not an investment bank. Just like in a bank there's IBD, S&T, Risk, Ops. Each senior team member has different skillsets and brings something to the table. Kenneth was an equities research analyst before becoming head of equity sales then moved to portfolio management. Yongjie was an exotics trader at JPM then portfolio management. Terry was at GIC risk ops for more than two decades. Michele was a quant researcher at Citadel. Priya co-founded a company that went public and she's leading our privates effort.

We started out as a family office so I have some FO clients ask how they can also set up a fund. One person can't do it alone. You have to attract the right people to be part of a team. Guess the team members like me enough to even watch my Quantflix videos.

Moral of the story: You can't win a basketball match by yourself, and you can't have a whole team of power forwards. A good shooter needs someone to pass the ball to him first. For those from my generation, The First Slam Dunk movie is coming out in December, an anime series which corporates should show for team building (instead of those hand-holding activities).

And don't buy any painting drawn by Chauwei. I'm no artist but I'm a good judgement of value.

#hedgefund #team #slamdunk #nara #familyoffice



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We are launching Friday Only Club!

Oscar de la Renta chose not to show at New York Fashion Week and instead streamed on Amazon. Is Amazon a suitable forum for a luxury brand? CEO Alex Bolen said, "I'm not sure. But we have to experiment with new ways to get our story out." https://lnkd.in/g4rZMxyb We launched our funds when Covid started and with the halt in travel and tough fund raising environment for emerging managers, we focused on performance and experimented with new ways to reach out to allocators, namely Linkedin posts and YouTube videos which can now be binge-watched on  www.quantflix.com . True, some people say that with the positive fund returns last year for both our long-only equity and multi-strategy funds, and the China fund outperforming its benchmark by its annualized double-digit aim, it was expected that we would pass the $100m mark. But when times are bad, most new investment monies went to well-known funds that are much bigger with a marketing budget that we cannot afford. So every lit...
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The First Edition of Friday Only Club!

  I got a latte art portrait of me today. It's not a "big deal" but shows the barista cares (at 9am in the morning). (No comments on how I look, especially my Bombastic Hair*, unless you look better with no Photoshop in your mid-40s with no makeup). Maybe some would say this is just business, the cafe is trying to get you to buy more coffee. But this is what differentiates a human barista from the Nespresso machine. Recently with year-end celebrations, New Year and Chinese New Year parties, I have been going to fancy wine dinners. I do appreciate the effort, and savings, but after talking to fellow investor friends I realized that sometimes we just need a cool place to chillax and share ideas (aka complain about investments that didn't work out). We can even bring our own wine. This coming Friday Only Club at Gao Cap Bar we'll have an expert talk (while drinking) about how to start an art collection, because a client asked me about displaying art in humid Singapor...
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