An investor whose fund returned 4.144% in the first quarter explains why its successful strategy is too dangerous for the average trader – and continues to call Fed incentives ‘very, very destructive’


Screen Shot 2020 08 17 at 12.45.11 PMBloomberg TV

  • Mark Spitznagel, head of Universa Investments, told CNBC on Monday that hedge risk hedging, the fund’s risk mitigation strategy that returned 4.144% in the first quarter, was generally “costly and a bad one”. strategy wie “.
  • Spitznagel warned investors at home against using sturgeon risk hedging. Instead, he said, they should be “realistic about risk mitigation strategy.”
  • He also described the Federal Reserve’s stimulus as ‘highly destructive,’ creating a ‘massive difference in wealth’. ‘
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The chance of a return of 4.144% is attractive. But Mark Spitznagel, the head of the fund that generated it, urges retail investors not to try his strategy at home.

The head of Universa Investments told CNBC on Monday that hedge risk hedging, the fund’s risk mitigation strategy leading to fortyfold gains in the first quarter, was generally “costly and a bad strategy”.

“You can not just talk about hedge-risk hedging as a thing, as a kind of commoditized entity,” Spitznagel said. “This is something I’ve been doing for 25 years, and people are going into space, and all of a sudden it’s a thing, which’s fun. But in many ways, tail hedgers are more different than they are equal. So we have to be careful. of be. “

Read more: Bruce Fraser outperformed the S&P 500 by almost 286% as a hedge fund manager before moving to investing in real estate. He describes the strategy he used to collect more than 1,600 multifamily units.

In April, The Wall Street Journal reported on a letter to clients in which Spitznagel highlighted the extreme returns that his fund strategy saw when the market collapsed: The S&P 500 index lost 12% in March, but an investor with 3.3 % of the assets in the tail of Universa risk strategy and the rest in an index fund that follows the benchmark would have returned 0.4%.

According to The Journal, no other risk mitigation strategy, such as diversifying with gold or bonds, would have had a positive return during that period.

Not everyone agrees that this strategy is a good one. AQR criticized it in April, saying it works in the short term, but not in the long term.

When asked by CNBC Spitznagel to offer advice on how investors can reduce risks at home, he warned against using Universa’s strategy.

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“They can not get the kind of explosive adverse protection that we do. This is the derivatives market, and everyone should really stay away from here,” Spitznagel said. “These are weapons of mass destruction in the wrong hands, for sure. I think it’s enough for people to just be realistic about the risks, realistic about the risk mitigation strategy.”

The investment chief also said the Federal Reserve was accelerating the market tube. The Fed’s recent moves to support markets and small businesses “feel good” and “look good” in the short term, he said, but “the long-term effects of this game are very, very destructive. “

Spitznagel added: “We also do not pay attention to the massive difference in wealth that is made when we inflate these financial markets. It is unintentional, really.”

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