If you actually read the article, it's redemptions. It's sad, as he simply could not adapt to an entirely new market environment, not seen in his investment lifetime. "Another guy without any risk management clue? Just like Optionsellers honcho, James Cordier learned the hard way. This guy had $20 billion to manage and he lost most of it? Let that sink in. Sorry for his family but, it is all his doing. If he controlled his risk, no way he should have lost that much monies. Retail traders shooting to make millions of the $1,000-$5,000 you have to trade, you are nuts and will lose all your monies like this guy. Chances are good, you are plowing 80%-100% of your capital on each and every trade. One bad trade will finish you. Reddit traders illustrate the utter stupidity and greed of today's newbie traders." So @smallfil was completely off in assessing this guy, as he was no James Cordier...
Unless he is escaping from something else more sinister that nobody is aware, to me, this guy is the typical example of what happens when you don't have a life outside of your work. No matter how much you love your work, you need to relax and unwind and just leave it and get out for a while. Judging from this picture, this guy hasn't relaxed for years maybe never relaxed for his whole life. The guy is wound up so tight that any tiny little thing would've made him snap. I don't believe it's because he is egotistic or narcissistic. He won two investment management awards and he left the funds that he won the awards with so he's not in it for the prize. He's got the prize and he didn't care. He is just too driven, strives too much for excellence and defines too much of himself by his work and accomplishments. Some people are like that. They want to be the best of the best, top above the top and they just want to be known and remembered for what they accomplished. They want to leave a legacy behind. There is nothing wrong with that. Everybody likes to do that, leaves something behind for people to remember with. The problem is he had put his whole essence and reason of existence entirely on his accomplishments and nothing else. This reminds me of a scene in the Avengers movie where Captain America says to Iron Man, "you are just a man in a suit of armor. Take that way, what are you?" Iron Man replied without even thinking "a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist". I bet you this guy only has ONE title "a fund manager". And I was not wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Vaulx. That's not enough. You have to have multiple titles behind your name, not as quite impressive as Iron Man but multiple titles. You cannot have your life defined by just ONE thing because when that ONE thing that you have banked your whole life on is not to your expectation and you feel you are not able to work further or have more time to reach your expectation, then you won't be able to cope. Clearly the mass exodus of investors and the funds along with them to the point of the complete closure of the fund that he's worked his whole life for was the indication of failure to him. He's 59, about to reach senior years and he feels he is not able to work any further to reach what he wanted to reach, whatever that may be. He sees that fund as himself, created by him, growing with him and now dead. What was that saying? The captain goes down with the ship. Well the fund manager goes down with his fund. I won't be surprised that this saying crossed his mind during one of his final thoughts. Personally I think it was a bit cruel for IVA to have closed his fund like that. The fund still had almost $1 billion assets in there. There are people who still wanted to stay with him. Why close the fund? There are hedge funds that have lot smaller amount of assets in there and they still exist fine. Why destroy someone's work that they have worked their whole life for? So hypocritical of the fund company to write that it's with a heavy heart to announce the death of him. I bet you they are not sorry at all that he is gone. I hope they are happy. Anyway at least one article here referred to him as a legendary value fund manager and a renowned value investor. I hope he can take comfort in that. People will not forget what he did. https://www.barrons.com/articles/legendary-value-manager-charles-de-vaulx-found-dead-51619564407 Now go, get away from the computer and do something else!! Clean your house, play with your kids, go read a book, do some craft, do some woodworking, build something . Remember always, you are NOT just a trader!! Do what you enjoy and not because you want to be the best.
nowadays there are buildings which are designed in such a way that you can't possibility jump out of it. Hotels near casinos are designed with windows sealed/locked.
OMG!! James Cordier is an incompetent wannabe. This guy is a brilliant investor who not only has the academic credential (Master's degree in Finance) but also trained with the best of the best in the investment management industry and has won numerous industry awards. His fund did not blow up and he had to go on Youtube to make a cheesy tacky apology video. Quite the opposite, all of the stocks that he picked actually appreciated in value at the time of his death. His fund still had $800+ million left in assets. It's almost an insult to compare him to James Cordier.
Not just redemptions but complete liquidation after him having worked on it for 14 years and I didn't assume automatically that must be the reason although it is highly likely the reason:
Exactly. Some people feel shame and humiliation to take unemployment benefits from government, even though it's free money from taxpayers. Some people are more than happy about taking free money from taxpayers despite being able-bodied to find a job without much difficulty. The economy will be stronger if there are more people who feel shame than shameless parasites. For those who really tried to look for jobs but can't, it's ok to get some welfare from the richer segments of society.
Maybe, he was. Investors do not just take out their monies out of funds for the simple reason that you could be liquidating your shares just as the fund has been dropping in value for a while, which seems to be the case here. At the end of the day, investors have had enough and wanted out of his fund at all cost. At the peak, he had $20 billion, just before the fund was liquidated, he had just $3 billion left. Now, I do not know the extent of his losses but, it must be substantial enough for the investors to want what is left of their monies and to bail out. Of course, bailing out probably, compounded his losses as now, he was selling as the stocks the fund held kept going down. Still a risk management problem. Maybe, he should have closed positions when he had substantial profits and sold his losers to offset the gains?
You truly need to inform yourself more (and better): https://www.ivafunds.com/documents/Annual-Report-9-30-20.pdf https://www.ivafunds.com/ There you go. He was trailing the benchmark index (Page 12), and he provides a letter to investors (Page 9). Pretty transparent report. No major losses, so his risk management was not reckless at all. Maybe manage a BILLION+ first, and then you can tell us when to close positions for substantial profits, and sell losers to offset the gains???