Monday, August 25, 2008

TUDOR JONES' BLACK-BOX FUND FIGURES ON A GOOD 7 MONTHS

I owe someone a Hat Tip on this but I've forgotten who. If it's you, drop us a line and we'll link it up.
From the New York Post:

Paul Tudor Jones' trading firm Tudor Investment might be a newbie to trading mathematical- quant strategies but it has soared to the top of the sector through July 31 - beating out seasoned vets in the field, namely Goldman Sachs' Global Equities Opportunities fund and Jim Simons' [*] RIEF quantitative hedge funds.

Tudor's Tensor fund, run by Steve Evans, boasts an 18.9 percent gain year-to-date, according to sources familiar with the performance and confirmed by the company.

The fund, which invests in global equities and has nearly $1 billion in assets, like all quant funds, uses complicated computer-programmed strategies that directs all trades. It is so confusing that most market traders just refer to it as black box magic.

Clearly the Tudor team's magic is working as it's beating market peers by a wide margin and even surpassing its 13.78 percent average annual returns since late 2005 inception.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management, once hailed as the leader in quant strategies with average returns over 30 percent, has seen its own Global Equities Opportunities fund strategy slip. According to sources inside GSAM, the July turmoil that hit many hedge funds hard this year took GEO down off its 7 percent return as of mid-June to a flat-to-up less than 1 percent performance as of July 31....MORE

*For more on Mr. Simons, see: "I am obviously doing something wrong"