LiquidAltFund

Investing talent, harnessed.

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@BobEUnlimited @unrollthread

[John L. Bowman @BowmanJohnL]

Yesterday, @CAIAAssociation unveiled our new seminal report on Total Portfolio Approach with @NZSuperFund, @cppinvestments, @gicsingapore and Future Fund. A must read for the entire capital markets system. Get it here: https://t.co/hf4seTScQP

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

The most powerful thing I am aware of is to spend your time doing what you want to do.

I've been on a multi-year mission to make as much of my calendar filled with things I actually want to do as possible. This has been SHOCKINGLY hard.

I've learned there's actually only one thing that I really love, that I'll do until I die: spending long periods of time with extraordinarily talented people (usually founders, investors, and teachers--people with really high leverage).

I like to learn from them (nothing energizes me like someone doing what they are supposed to be doing with their life), and I like to try and help them by unlocking something productive: a podcast that exposes them to the world's best audience, an introduction or two that accelerates some part of what they are doing, a distillation of their narrative or core message, maybe even an idea they hadn't considered before.

There are many days now where I have 2-3 long conversations and that's it. Those are the best days. "conversationalist" isn't a job you imagine as a kid, and its not one that'd "make your parents proud."

The bizarre part is that if you just do what you love, incredible but unpredictable things will happen. I run a private equity/venture capital business and a media company, and both were an unforeseen consequence of being a conversationalist. About every 100 or so conversations, an amazingly interesting investing opportunity spontaneously appears (I'm very rarely explicitly hunting for some specific investment, and I've found the best ones come from some strange source).

Kevin Kelly has this great idea that you need your own distinct definition of success. For me, success would be cultivating a very specific reputation. I'd like my reputation to be "talk to that guy and you'll leave energized, thinking about something new. Good things will happen, and it'll generally cost you nothing."

I sometimes feel guilty that my "work" doesn't feel like a grind. People think great accomplishment requires "grit" and "grinding," and I have nothing against those things, and surely tons of the great outcomes were just made possible by extreme grinders...but, I never feel like I'm grinding when I do the thing I like doing.

Maybe I'd offer an alternative to "grit." Great long term outcomes require an unusual fuel source. Chips on shoulders is one, but I tried that and it almost killed me. The best long term fuel source is some repeated act that energizes you in a way that then lets you become a generative person, who uses the energy to make things for others. A great question is "what is your renewable fuel source?" While its not perfect, I think the best answer is "do what you want."

Joseph Campbell wrote "the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." Being who you are, or doing what you want, sounds selfish, but its the opposite. My experience with countless people doing what they want is that they do THE MOST for others.

What I've learned watching others try to do more of what they want is that the transition from a life of "I should" to "I want" requires extreme conviction, courage, and a leap of faith. It should be telling that while you sometimes see people make this transition, you never see someone transition back the other direction.

I sincerely hope more people take this leap.

"A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: 'as you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.'"

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@FundamentEdge This is A+, only quibble is what happens to the MM ecosystem when the top two are closed and everyone else has to spend over their cost of capital to grow? Passing through that 10 person Dubai office to LPs works until the alpha from the existing teams fails to cover that outlay

[boaz weinstein @boazweinstein]

If you’ve found my opinions about closed-end funds useful, here’s the one I’d most appreciate you retweet.

@BlackRock, for the past two months I’ve highlighted your governance failures on $ECAT, $BIGZ & $BFZ. You set an impossible voting standard for last week’s annual meetings to keep incumbent directors on the board. It required Saba to win 50%+ of all shares, not 50%+ of the votes. Imagine a US election where everyone who stays home and doesn’t vote counts for the incumbent. Hugo Chavez would have been impressed! Disgraceful.

The hypocrisy is stunning because you are violating many of the governance guidelines you publish and expect corporate America to follow. Here is the proof:
$ECAT: https://t.co/i5VY1u9ye1
$BIGZ: https://t.co/raFsOfJToR
$BFZ: https://t.co/8VwVGrWgU9

What also proves that we’re right is that in the significant media attention Saba’s campaign has received, you haven’t challenged ANY of our arguments.
BlackRock, the silence is deafening. All you have said to the media or have written in your mailers is that Saba is a short term investor. Surely, if all the points we made were not facts, you’d have done better than name calling?

$ECAT, an ESG closed end fund with no leverage sits at a $150mm discount to NAV. You have a dozen ESG open end funds that have very similar portfolios that you could merge it into. Every one of the thousands of investors - including your employees who own ECAT - would make back this gargantuan loss. They could stay in the fund or sell - but they would no longer be trapped by a bottom quartile discount, which is a symbol of your failure.

Since you manage $8 trillion of open end funds, I don’t think anyone would believe you are trying to spare investors. You should admit that the ONLY reason you won’t do it is because the stock market values the open end funds you manage at a lower multiple than ‘permanently trapped’ closed end funds.

Often, an activist’s plan involves uncertainty. Closed end activism is certain. Merging with an open end fund is certain to restore it to NAV. It’s a fact. If it weren’t, BlackRock would have offered a counterpoint.

BlackRock’s behavior is aberrant. The boards at @GoldmanSachs and @GuggenheimPtnrs have shown exemplary governance to their closed end fund investors. There’s a reason @PIMCO’s closed end funds trade at a top quartile price to NAV.

BlackRock’s closed end fund board members have failed to fulfill their duty to shareholders, blinded by the $500,000 paycheck they each receive for sitting on 70 boards, even though BlackRock���s guidelines have a limit at 4. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.

Shame

[Benjamin Felix @benjaminfelix]

Structured products are designed to offer some degree of principal protection and participation in the upside of risky assets.

This seems like an attractive proposition, but have you ever wondered why the banks are so eager to sell them?

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

April Market review: low risk stocks dominated everything...portentous or random, I wonder...

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@Seawolfcap @jimdelisle @YouTube I sometimes wonder what the lawyers inwardly say to themselves when drafting these...probably looking to go in-house.

[Danny Dayan @DannyDayan5]

Is it possible the Fed's QT program is unintentionally working against the Fed's fight against inflation? It might be. Let's do a thread.

[innocent bystander @innoc_bystander]

Really trying to wrap my head around why VCs are loosing their goddamned minds, given:

1) A significant portion of these deposits will be recouped, and,
2) you’re looking at a couple weeks before that happens (2 pay periods?)

And I think I’ve figured it out.

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@rabbit_wealth Would love to know what this one went for: 32 Leeton Avenue, Coogee
https://t.co/z4g4ijmGhU

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@hfreflection @MadsenSouth @VennTwoSigma can prevent this

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@Jack_Raines Best one yet

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@Morgan_03 RoW says it's 311223

[Venn @VennTwoSigma]

Private asset returns are typically smoothed and infrequent, reducing explainability and artificially lowering volatility. In this article, we discuss two steps to make your private assets returns look and feel more like their public market proxies.

https://t.co/VvPGzyNgbh

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

A short summary of the beast of 2022 in #markets. Never ever was there a bear so drear. h/t @FT @VennTwoSigma @biancoresearch

[Don Steinbrugge @DonSteinbrugge]

Top Hedge Fund Industry Trends for 2023 https://t.co/TO4FrUVnDi via @marketsmedia

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@kofinas @TgMacro Corzine on speed

[LiquidAltFund @LiquidAltFund]

@dampedspring @MacroisMicro @NickGiva Andy, you're usually right, but the public backlash here is exactly why institutions like this (usually) follow minimum DD procedures to a T...no bank accounts? Come on....