Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Interviews with 14 greatest hedge fund managers

Snippets from their interviews - links for full story embedded
What market lessons have you learned over the years?
Some markets have very long, quiet periods. Some markets and some instruments become obsolete. Some markets become arbitraged out. The excess return in them goes away. One of the most important skills you need is to constantly reinvent where you put resources. Commodities markets were quiet for years. Now they’re very strong.
Does this mean that you must constantly make a macro judgment?
The view I started with and embodied in Caxton’s fund was that business cycles were very important and that they occurred all over the world, and it was useful to observe them and to take advantage of the opportunities across four different asset classes.
Which four asset classes?
Equities, fixed income, commodities and currencies. The raison d’ĂȘtre of the company is to observe the nature of the macro cycle across multiple economic and political zones and to take advantage of the character of each business cycle so that we would have multiple business cycles to trade.

Julian Robertson

Not many managers change their investment style?

I don’t think I did. I think I wised up a bit and realized it wasn’t just price that created value. If you can buy a stock at 25 times earnings that you are sure will grow at 20 percent for a long period of time, it is a better value than a stock trading at seven times earnings that is going to grow at 3 to 5 percent. The investor makes money on both the multiple and the growth in earnings.