Renaissance does not have steady profits. Don't confuse Medallion's positive returns with steadiness. You can have positive but very lumpy returns. Besides, mid-year last year Medallion lost most or all of its return for the year and then made them it back in the second part of the year. But don't worry. If Medallion is a Ponzi scheme, it won't effect you. Medallion doesn't take outside investment. The partners kicked out all outside investors from Medallion and now only run their own money in that fund. The remainder of Renaissance fundswhich ar open to outside investment are down on the year. Hardly "steady".
simons commented that mediallion is predominantly his own money. So if it was a ponzi he's only be ripping off himself
An interesting train of thoughts would be 1. Artificially "prop" up Medaillon's results. Make sure no outside money is invested so if somebody cracks down on the beautified returns then you argue the limited partners in the fund - which are Simons himself and his employees - won't press charges. 2. Use Medaillon's returns (which are unavailable to outside investors) as a marketing tool to lure investors into the billion dollar RIFF (managed futures) and REIF (alternative beta equity) funds which are losing money, both down (not devastatingly though) in 2008. Simons and his employees collect fixed fees - which I read they're now paying back, probably due to pissed off investors. Probably far from reality, but some investors in RIFF and REIF must feel a little bit like "let outside, standing in the rain" as they bought into Simons' genius over Medaillon.
I have always suspected that there was something of a bait and switch going on. He is a legenary investor in unaudited funds but that same magic seems not to really translate to OPM.
You're a trader, right? 9,000 hedge funds thousands more investment and trading partnerships Tens or hundreds of thousands more managed accounts (which is what Madoff's schtick was supposed to be). How many frauds? You can count them on two hands and a couple of toes. So....What's the probability that a fund is a fraud? If you can't figure that out, you should stop trading before you get the rest of your face ripped off. Anyone who invests in Renaissance thinking they're going to get Medallion's returns is an idiot and deserves to lose. They are told pretty clearly that Medallion is off limits to them. If they don't like it, they can give their money to some other hedge fund putz. There's really no shortage of them and they've gotten a lot less picky about their investors of late.
for the guy who started this thread- he can either sue you, or he can recreate you as a variable in his next algorithm representing all that is stupid and random in investor behavior.