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Tontine Associates

Holy Grails | October 6th, 2008

The hedge fund Tontine Associates is down around -65% over 2008. Their explanation (PDF). They were a $10 billion dollar fund…whose predictions did not work out.

Note: No vulgarity or ugly attacks. There are other places for that.

  • Ross

    Wow…..they are keeping their lockup in place BUT allowing investors to add to their positions in this obliterated fund. How generous. I liked the whining about how their “fundamental” ideas were right….it’s just that the market didnt do what it was “suppose” to do.

    Isnt ironic how during all these bloodbaths guys who stick the the basic principles like “Hold your winners…cut your losers” are doing fine. JWH was up %20 in their largest fund. Long live the trendfollowers !!!!

  • Frankie Gamwell

    excepts:

    (From Captal Funds Paragraph) We don’t want to encourage short sellers by naming any holdings.

    (From Tontine-25 paragraph) Manuevered through the summer by our ability to quickly get short certain industries.

    Funny stuff!

  • Frankie Gamwell

    ok one more, “will the fed keep too tight a reign on this liquidity and drive us into recession”…Uh, um, speechless!

  • http://michaelcovel.com Michael Covel

    Nice catches Frankie. Funny stuff.

  • http://pages.sbcglobal.net/acom Ken – Todays Breakout Stocks

    Here’s a good one too:

    “We are concerned that the general mental depression that has griped the Northeast will make the economic recovery slower than we want”

    Dang, if that’s the case then who needs a $700billion bailout?? Just give em all Prozac and problem solved, right??

  • http://michaelcovel.com Michael Covel

    All of this nonsense started with LTCM summer 1998. If they would have let that firm crater, which would have popped the dot come bubble earlier, we might be at a better place today. Government actions over the last 10 years have all been designed to let John Q. Public think or feel he can escape the pain of being over-leveraged with no cash in the bank. Why my little speech? Cause guys that ran things called Tontine were the unintended consequences of government bailouts over the last 10 years. Let’s all hope the wash out is complete this time.

  • Arvanit

    What a bunch of cry babies. They take credit for the 100% gains on previous years, but the markets are too blame and the situation is not ‘normal,’ as if making 100% a year is.

  • tobash

    “the general mental depression that has gripped the Norhteast will make the economic recovery slower” too. many. jokes. seriously, i cant decide. I also think its nice they believe steel “will earn more than the public generally believes.” Thats good for them.

    One good point though: “they will fall until they do not fall anymore” yep.

  • http://www.yahoo.com ROSLI HUSSIN

    Following The Trend is not an easy business, however if you manage to do so, you are on top of the world.
    At this current situation, all hedge fund managers should have liquidated their holdings or legally short :)
    The theory of holding shares is a disaster now.
    STILL WE ARE NOT LEARNING ???

  • http://non Jf

    I think there wasnt any $700/800 billion package.
    Could it be that all was good acting …

    Make the people think there is a rescue package,
    but it doenst exist?
    It worked once why not twice? :)

  • Lloyd

    With all the blood in the streets right now I would love to know who the current winners are in this zero sum game.

  • George

    Still amazing that the so called “sophisticated” hedge fund mgrs. who got all the tools in the world , still do not have an EXIT STRATEGY….Shame on them

  • Tom

    Just looked at a long-term chart of the Nikkei – plus/minus zero over the last 20 years. So much for B&H “for the long run”. Well, I don’t mind – at the end of the day a large amount of trendfollowers’ profits come from the pockets of the B&H-crowd.

  • http://pages.sbcglobal.net/acom Ken – Todays Breakout Stocks

    Im not so sure about that. Remember the buy and hold crowd is always buying the dips because they think the market has bottomed out or they are getting a “good deal”. And it’s this dip buying that often messes up our beautiful downtrends, lol, at least temporarily until the trend reasserts itself.

  • Bill K

    Hey Ross.

    What is JWH funds? Sounds like I should check them out.

  • M Beatini

    Was is Baron Rothschild who said “I buy ‘em when they’re going up and sell ‘em when they’re going down.”?

  • John

    Dislocation- ahh ha hahahahahahah!!! How perfect is that.
    The problem with smart people is they are never wrong.
    Some very bad ideas:
    A smart president.
    A smart portfolio manager.
    A smart wife.
    We all need to question our decisions.

  • taylor boyd

    Fundamentals don’t affect account balances. Prices do. They’re all that matter.


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