If Victor was running a fund today, he would certainly be short volatility - and making a mint every single week. Until he wasn't.
There is nothing wrong with short val strategies. But the implementation is the key. If short val strategy maintains ME Ratio of 10-15%, it will withstand things we have seen so far.
Victor never went short as far as I know unless you consider being long the Thai Baht as the equivalent of being short the $US.,
In the interview Barry Ritholtz brings up how he might have inherited the blow up gene from his grandfather as he too was prone to catastrophes....
This is offtopic, but I think more interesting than the original subject. There is a difference Average Joe reporting and a HF manager reporting. Sure, the SEC still could ignore you, but again, at least you tried. Here is what I would have done if I were a HF manager: I could have taken out an ad in a financial paper offering a bet: Show me your independent audits or you are a Ponzi, 1 million dollar. If nothing else, it could be good PR for my firm, and maybe the SEC starts an investigation when it is all out in the open. Also the HF business is highly competitive, taking down one of the biggest HF that sucks away money from me is in my interest. Let's use an analogy: Let's say I am a large beer maker. It comes to my knowledge that another beer maker is doing something illegal adding something to its product. Now do I keep it to myself or do I blow them out of the water? After all a few bad apples make everyone looks bad, in any industry. So yes, sure I make some waves and bring attention to the illegal practice...
there is not much difference who you are. the SEC ignored harry m., who exposed madoff, for for 8 years. the SEC has a well deserved reputation for doing nothing until after the horse has left the barn
Harry M. wasn't a HF manager and he didn't take out a full page ad offering a million dollar bet. Otherwise I agree.
Victor Niederhoffer had an article about him in the New Yorker - he said that making returns over 50% and your on the raged edge of blowing up no matter whom the trader is since no one is immune from the reality of math. He said his main mistakes were not having stops & having large positions he could not easily unwind in thin markets like Thailand. He also said that he had always refused trading friends or family money saying that derivatives are just to risky for anyone other than a truly high net worth investors. He joins a long list of those that went north of $10M and blew up.
"Fool never learns, smart men learn from his mistakes, wise men learn from mistakes of others" - Thomas Fuller
When traders of this caliber blow up it should humble us all - everyone knows capital preservation is the most important thing, yet so many former brilliant traders go down in flames from astonishing heights. Wikpedia Niederhoffer Investments returned 35% a year from inception through 1996, when MAR ranked it the No. 1 hedge fund manager in the world. In 1997, Niederhoffer published a New York Times bestselling book, The Education of a Speculator.