Yes I have made a dime. Even more than that - I've made enough for an entire cup of coffee. And absolutely not. I would never think of charging fees. Horrors!
I thought the only reason for this thread - at least initially was for Hanketsurfer to flog Visnhu's book (read: hey hey - free publicity)
what Vishnu is saying is that trend following funds have inferior sharpe, sortino, omega ratio etc. they simply are not efficient in the MPT sense that there are funds that return higher per unit risk than trend followers. Thus it is not simply a matter of just returns, but the risk involved. thus whatever the fund, it has to be measured in relation to risk. why would investors want to invest in trend followers when their sharpe is lower than other funds, like stat arb, long/short, various arb strats. it doesn't make sense. i'm a stat arb guy and honestly, i really haven't seen trend following funds go above the sharpe ratio of 1 before over a long period of time... i mean there are so many more funds that approach 2 with a track record of 5+ years. returns without any relation to risk is meaningless. trend followers typically have a sharpe of 0.5 or something... and if you think about it.... that's the same as the S&P! I don't care if you're dunn, ekhardt, etc etc, the proof is in the sharpe/sortino/omega.
this thread is going nowhere fast. you guys are arguing with a fund manager who is doing what you only dream about. vishnu runs a successful fund in NYC, plus is connected with the leaders in the business. he knows what he is talking about--- definitely not a armchair quarterback like some of you...... surfer
nicholaf, Institutional allocators, FOFs, pension funds etc build portfolios with allocations to a diverse range of asset classes and strategies. At any given point in time some asset classes and strategies are likely to be out of style. Such is the nature of managing a diversified portfolio. Allocations to trend-followers is largely viewed as a form of disaster insurance. Their returns are generally negatively correlated with equities and only mildly correlated with bonds. When the shit hits the fan (eg: LTCM , tech crash, 9/11 etc) trend-followers out perform.
let's make a bet then, shall we? a million dollars that trend following systems continue to exist and thrive in 10 years. in fact, i'll personally make sure it happens. i can have my lawyer draft up a contract if you're interested.