So why can't a fund do both strategies at the same time?: -Be long ETFs -Sacrify 2-3% annually to OTM puts In average years it will underperform by 2-3%, but still make good money as the market tends to trend up. In bad years it will still make a positive return. Don't they call this hedging?
My guess is, it pays more to accept the drawdowns based on historical events backtests. Nassim's Thesis is, as I understand it, that the market (Funds etc.) underestimate the black swan events/fat tails.
Tail funds aren’t designed to catch the right side of the distribution. Think of it like synthetic puts in an index. It’s more so designed to compliment a long risk portfolio.
Nobody gives them credit above and beyond their performance numbers. Total, risk adjusted return is all that matters and someone who held shares with this fund over the past 10 years or so would have done pretty well, way better than the average hedge fund return. I don't know how else to put it. If you still disagree then we may have to leave it at this disagreement.
I can't comment with certainty but after reading the link of allaboutalpha it sounds like the journalists at the wsj had no clue whatsoever what they were writing about. The contracts could have been traded in the otc market. Their counterparts would have had to hedge but that can be accomplished via many different means. It was stupid for the journalist or tasty trade to assume the profit claim was bogus because not enough contracts traded or because open interest was too low. Anyway, I was just the messenger and posted the article link, nothing more nothing less.
Where did the authors get that number ? It sounds like pocket money for someone involved in finance for so long. Remember reading Taleb got already a couple of million upfront to write Antifragile.
https://privatefunddata.com/fund-companies/universa-investments-lp/ This site claims that Universa has 2Bn AUM. Let me ask you this: do you think they are now an 80Bn fund? This would make them the second largest fund in the world after Bridgewater I think. I don't think you understand the Universa model. If you are interested, I can explain it to you.
Btw - it’s gotta sting when you claim to be the best tail hedger in the world and you make a 44x return on a trade. And a long biased fundamental guy makes 100x in the same event.
Making money is the results of: profit * leverage * frequency. For Taleb frequency is a problem that is not enough compensated by profit.