Blog: Top 2008 Earners: Trend Followers Right There
Alpha Magazine’s top 25 earners for 2008 is littered with trend following traders. The trend followers:
6. Bruce Kovner: Caxton Associates $640 Million
The man is a former cabdriver - of course he knows how to survive. Bruce Kovner’s 13 percent net return last year (after a 30 percent performance fee) on his $4.3 billion Caxton Global Investments fund underscores his long-proven ability to perform in difficult markets. The New York-based manager, whose firm Caxton Associates runs $8 billion, made money in 2008 off his renowned macro strategy, gaining 8.1 percent in the final quarter alone, mostly from fixed-income investments - adding to his reputation as a master of capital preservation. Kovner, 64, another member of the Alpha Hedge Fund Hall of Fame, has a more colorful past than most managers. Before coming to hedge funds, he studied New York from behind the wheel of a taxi, took up the harpsichord and worked as a consultant to the national Republican Party. In 1977 he took out a $3,000 credit card advance to finance a shot at commodities trading, and in 1983 founded Caxton with $13 million. He says his edge comes from maintaining his intellectual curiosity and ready flexibility. “One of the most important skills you need is to constantly reinvent where you put resources,” he told Alpha last year. “You must seek out undiscovered information.”
9. David Harding: Winton Capital Management $250 Million
In a year when wave riders ruled, futures trading pioneer David Harding was among the best of breed. The founder, managing director and head of research at London-based Winton Capital Management rode a number of trends - both up and down - including large moves in bonds, equity indexes and commodities (especially energy and grains). His $5.5 billion flagship Winton Futures Fund rose 21 percent. Most of its gains came early in the year: The fund was up 18 percent by the end of May, and then Harding, 47, went on defense, dumping a huge chunk of assets into U.S. Treasuries. Still, his firm, which was managing $13.3 billion at year-end, had about $500 million in redemptions. An honors graduate of Cambridge University, where he specialized in theoretical physics, Harding in 1987 co-founded Adam, Harding & Lueck, a quant shop eventually acquired by London-based Man Group. In 1997 he launched Winton, which uses computer-driven models. More than half its 180-member staff is devoted to research.
18. Kenneth Tropin: Graham Capital Management $120 Million
Trend-following was one of the few winning strategies of 2008, and Ken Tropin was among its most successful practitioners. All 13 of his funds at Graham Capital Management made money - including the one third of his assets that are described as discretionary - enabling him to return to the top-earners list for the first time since 2003. Most of his funds racked up big double-digit returns, ranging from 20 percent to 52 percent. The $4.7 billion Rowayton, Connecticut-based firm reaped profits in a variety of areas - commodities, currencies, equity indexes and fixed-income assets. Its equity bets did especially well when prices dropped in the first and fourth quarters. Tropin was helped by a move in the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar. His firm also profited in metals and soft commodities. Tropin, 55, founded Graham Capital in 1994 as a quantitative macro hedge fund after nearly five years at the helm of managed-futures firm John W. Henry & Co.
22. Christian Baha: Superfund $85 Million
Superfund founder Christian Baha has defied the skeptics who snickered at his strategy of selling managed futures to the little guy. Baha, an Austrian who dropped out of college and in his TV commercials pokes fun at his accent and his inability to properly pronounce “investor,” allows clients to pony up as little as $5,000. His is a pure retail strategy that seems to toy with government restrictions on marketing. “I would love to tell you about Superfund, but regulations prevent me from describing it on television,” he says with a friendly smirk. Last year Baha’s Quadriga Superfund U.S. portfolios generated 30 percent average returns; they qualify as hedge funds because they include short positions and charge a 1.85 percent management fee and a 25 percent performance fee. His more aggressive overseas funds, some of which charge a 6 percent management fee and as much as 35 percent of profits, surged by 46 percent on average. Baha, 40, is one of seven systematic trend followers on this year’s list of top earners. A former police officer for the city of Vienna, he says his firm tracks 120 markets. Last year it was generally short global equity indexes and long many bond markets. In the first half of the year, it was long corn, gold, oil, soybeans and wheat and then shifted strategy, shorting many of those commodities. At year’s end it was managing $1.65 billion.
24. William Dunn: Dunn Capital Management $80 Million
Bill Dunn didn’t coin the phrase “the trend is your friend” - credit for that goes to the late Chicago commodities trader George Lane - but few investors have profited from that popular bit of Wall Street wisdom for as long as the 74-year-old Dunn. The chairman of Stuart, Florida-based Dunn Capital Management has generated a 19.4 percent net annualized composite return since he launched his original trading program in October 1974 in the throes of the OPEC-induced global economic meltdown. After a tough money-losing stretch in the middle of this decade, when there weren’t many long-term trends to follow, Dunn’s funds since September 2007 have soared, capitalizing on sharp price moves - both long- and short-term. His $168 million World Monetary and Agriculture program, founded in 1984, was up 51.5 percent last year. The much younger and larger Mosaic Program, a $222 million fund started in October 2006, surged by 94 percent. Both programs trade across several markets, including agriculture, currencies, energy, interest rates, metals and stock indexes. In the first half of 2008, Dunn went long on commodities, especially cattle, corn, oil and wheat. In the second half he shorted interest rates, stock indexes and certain currencies. He has been broadly short the past six months, explaining that he is worried that the U.S. is drifting toward socialism and that free-market capitalism is imperiled. Dunn, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Northwestern University, worked as an operations researcher and systems analyst for the Coast Guard, the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Department of Defense before switching to trading.
Who are the other trend followers on the list? I confess ignorance. They say 7 of 25 are. FYI, my new edition of Trend Following features Harding, Baha and Dunn.
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