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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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Nothing lasts forever, even if it's expensive.

I received a jar of La Prairie face cream as a gift about three years ago. With a sample size of one, I found the cream to be surprisingly effective. My own experience has been that there is only a very weak correlation between price and quality for anything age defying. But because La Prairie is so expensive - it has caviar extract! - I only used a very small amount each time such that I still had some cream left in the jar after 3 years.

The instructions say that the cream can be used up to 3 years from date of manufacture if not opened, and 1 year after it is opened. But I thought since I'm still alive after eating expired instant noodles I should be ok with some time extension for my precious cream. Like how I used to tell my boss deadlines are not really dead.

Fast forward to this week. I received another jar of face cream from the same brand but this time with golden caviar extracts! Clearly the person who gave me thought I needed more help. So finally I could finish up the 'skin caviar' I had used extremely sparingly.

The moment of truth. I realized the cream had kind of dried up. I could still spread it around my face with some force but it had lost its original effectiveness. Nothing lasts forever, even if it's expensive. Especially diamonds.

A few years ago, a family office which had just set up in Singapore asked me about our fund of funds portfolio (which is now our BAA Fund). The FO asked if I could point out to them which funds I would remain invested in the next five years, since I said I do not "trade around" funds. I replied that I honestly could not predict which funds I would definitely stay invested in, and could only tell them which funds I have already invested for that duration.

There is a right strategy for the right time. CTAs were the big winners last year but they had experienced a slump period before that. Macro and Rates strategies are exciting again now that we are no longer at zero or negative interest rates. We can't rely on evergreen funds - cue Madoff in the Netflix series.

Maybe the UFO would have tasted more out-of-this-world if I ate it right after I bought it from the convenience store.

www.gao-cap.com
www.gao-adv.com
www.quantflix.com

#hedgefund #multistrategy #ufo #familyoffice #singapore #madoff #expiration



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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...
Post a Comment
Read more