It is amazing how much real estate has melted down. I wonder over the next 20 years what these declines will really mean? Will people vacate some suburbs? Will they eventually move closer to large population areas? Could this meltdown be the return of the big city? On the other hand, with New York set to raises taxes to crazy levels, could we see some cities shrink in size?

The psychology of money is critical. I am just not so sure the government should be the shrink.

The headline “Soros: The Recession Will Last Forever” (article) caught my attention. Soros is a smart guy. He has made a lot of money. Will his prediction shake out? I have no clue, but I really don’t think he can predict the future either. An excerpt:

If the G20 is nothing but a talking shop then he thinks we are heading for meltdown. “That could push the world into depression. It’s really a make-or-break occasion. That’s why it’s so important.” The chances of a depression are, he says, “quite high” – even if that is averted, the recession will last a long time. “Look, we are not going back to where we came from. In that sense it’s going to last for ever..”

You never want to hear one of the greatest traders, regardless whether you like his politics or not, talk like that.

Read.

As America unravels our new technology will capture it all:

Chart.

An excerpt from “The Quiet Coup“:

But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests–financiers, in the case of the U.S.–played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice

You can read the analysis, and it never stops, but how is it more important than the simple trend?

I saw this article today: Is Buffett the Biggest Bubble of All?

The author could be right or could be wrong. All we can know, without seeing everything behind Buffett’s curtain, is the price of Berkshire Hathaway. It has trended down since last fall only to reverse in the last few weeks. If you had a trading system to capture that price move then you made money. But making predictions as this author has is real tough business. It always comes down to: Do you want to be “right” or make money.

Alpha Magazine’s top 25 earners for 2008 is littered with trend following traders. The trend followers:

6. Bruce Kovner: Caxton Associates $640 Million

The man is a former cabdriver – of course he knows how to survive. Bruce Kovner’s 13 percent net return last year (after a 30 percent performance fee) on his $4.3 billion Caxton Global Investments fund underscores his long-proven ability to perform in difficult markets. The New York-based manager, whose firm Caxton Associates runs $8 billion, made money in 2008 off his renowned macro strategy, gaining 8.1 percent in the final quarter alone, mostly from fixed-income investments – adding to his reputation as a master of capital preservation. Kovner, 64, another member of the Alpha Hedge Fund Hall of Fame, has a more colorful past than most managers. Before coming to hedge funds, he studied New York from behind the wheel of a taxi, took up the harpsichord and worked as a consultant to the national Republican Party. In 1977 he took out a $3,000 credit card advance to finance a shot at commodities trading, and in 1983 founded Caxton with $13 million. He says his edge comes from maintaining his intellectual curiosity and ready flexibility. “One of the most important skills you need is to constantly reinvent where you put resources,” he told Alpha last year. “You must seek out undiscovered information.”

9. David Harding: Winton Capital Management $250 Million

In a year when wave riders ruled, futures trading pioneer David Harding was among the best of breed. The founder, managing director and head of research at London-based Winton Capital Management rode a number of trends – both up and down – including large moves in bonds, equity indexes and commodities (especially energy and grains). His $5.5 billion flagship Winton Futures Fund rose 21 percent. Most of its gains came early in the year: The fund was up 18 percent by the end of May, and then Harding, 47, went on defense, dumping a huge chunk of assets into U.S. Treasuries. Still, his firm, which was managing $13.3 billion at year-end, had about $500 million in redemptions. An honors graduate of Cambridge University, where he specialized in theoretical physics, Harding in 1987 co-founded Adam, Harding & Lueck, a quant shop eventually acquired by London-based Man Group. In 1997 he launched Winton, which uses computer-driven models. More than half its 180-member staff is devoted to research.

18. Kenneth Tropin: Graham Capital Management $120 Million

Trend-following was one of the few winning strategies of 2008, and Ken Tropin was among its most successful practitioners. All 13 of his funds at Graham Capital Management made money – including the one third of his assets that are described as discretionary – enabling him to return to the top-earners list for the first time since 2003. Most of his funds racked up big double-digit returns, ranging from 20 percent to 52 percent. The $4.7 billion Rowayton, Connecticut-based firm reaped profits in a variety of areas – commodities, currencies, equity indexes and fixed-income assets. Its equity bets did especially well when prices dropped in the first and fourth quarters. Tropin was helped by a move in the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar. His firm also profited in metals and soft commodities. Tropin, 55, founded Graham Capital in 1994 as a quantitative macro hedge fund after nearly five years at the helm of managed-futures firm John W. Henry & Co.

22. Christian Baha: Superfund $85 Million

Superfund founder Christian Baha has defied the skeptics who snickered at his strategy of selling managed futures to the little guy. Baha, an Austrian who dropped out of college and in his TV commercials pokes fun at his accent and his inability to properly pronounce “investor,” allows clients to pony up as little as $5,000. His is a pure retail strategy that seems to toy with government restrictions on marketing. “I would love to tell you about Superfund, but regulations prevent me from describing it on television,” he says with a friendly smirk. Last year Baha’s Quadriga Superfund U.S. portfolios generated 30 percent average returns; they qualify as hedge funds because they include short positions and charge a 1.85 percent management fee and a 25 percent performance fee. His more aggressive overseas funds, some of which charge a 6 percent management fee and as much as 35 percent of profits, surged by 46 percent on average. Baha, 40, is one of seven systematic trend followers on this year’s list of top earners. A former police officer for the city of Vienna, he says his firm tracks 120 markets. Last year it was generally short global equity indexes and long many bond markets. In the first half of the year, it was long corn, gold, oil, soybeans and wheat and then shifted strategy, shorting many of those commodities. At year’s end it was managing $1.65 billion.

24. William Dunn: Dunn Capital Management $80 Million

Bill Dunn didn’t coin the phrase “the trend is your friend” – credit for that goes to the late Chicago commodities trader George Lane – but few investors have profited from that popular bit of Wall Street wisdom for as long as the 74-year-old Dunn. The chairman of Stuart, Florida-based Dunn Capital Management has generated a 19.4 percent net annualized composite return since he launched his original trading program in October 1974 in the throes of the OPEC-induced global economic meltdown. After a tough money-losing stretch in the middle of this decade, when there weren’t many long-term trends to follow, Dunn’s funds since September 2007 have soared, capitalizing on sharp price moves – both long- and short-term. His $168 million World Monetary and Agriculture program, founded in 1984, was up 51.5 percent last year. The much younger and larger Mosaic Program, a $222 million fund started in October 2006, surged by 94 percent. Both programs trade across several markets, including agriculture, currencies, energy, interest rates, metals and stock indexes. In the first half of 2008, Dunn went long on commodities, especially cattle, corn, oil and wheat. In the second half he shorted interest rates, stock indexes and certain currencies. He has been broadly short the past six months, explaining that he is worried that the U.S. is drifting toward socialism and that free-market capitalism is imperiled. Dunn, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Northwestern University, worked as an operations researcher and systems analyst for the Coast Guard, the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Department of Defense before switching to trading.

Who are the other trend followers on the list? I confess ignorance. They say 7 of 25 are. FYI, my new edition of Trend Following features Harding, Baha and Dunn.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) clearly had a rough go of it in the last 6 months. They lost a great deal of money. Now they seem intent on solving their “problems”. As this document (PDF) shows they are putting in place new rules for how they deal with and select hedge fund investments.

What are some of the big new rules? Well, CalPERS is worried about how much a hedge fund makes. Normal people might be worried first and foremost as to whether a fund returns ‘after fee’ positive performance or perhaps be concerned with the trading strategy employed, but CalPERS is worried about appearances. Clearly, CalPERS is only worried about politics. Does anyone think the great money earners in this world ask the questions CalPERS asks first? Of course not.

I would love to a list of the hedge funds and strategies CalPERS lost money in over the last 6 months. That would tell us a ton about the brain power in charge of all of those pension account monies.

PS. The “confidential” part is great. This is the freaking government!

Perry Jonkheer of IASG forwarded me a story: “Wall Street hedge fund managers, derivatives traders and mortgage loan officers could have learned something from this kid!:

A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.” The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?” The boy takes the quarters and leaves the dollar. “What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!” Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store & says “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?” The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game’s over!”