GO TWEET YOURSELF

I have no clue about social media. I used to have a TBP Facebook page and I deleted it. I hate Google and Facebook and will have nothing to do with them. I don’t know anything about Twitter, but Avalon recently started an account. She suggested that we create a Burning Platform twitter account and she would tweet whatever articles I think should be tweeted.

When she tried to open it under my email address it seems someone already had an account under my email address for spam, which was suspended by Twitter. So we had to create a new email address and ultimately opened the brand new Burning Platform twitter account. How exciting.

You can follow the Burning Platform here (there is a follow me button on the sidebar):

@burningplat

We thought the monkey was perfect. I have no idea how many TBPers use Twitter. But if you do, start following it today. I’m already up to 3 followers so far – including Avalon. Zero Hedge has 312,000 followers, so I’m not far behind. The first 100 followers get to spend the day helping bb make Fed Ex deliveries.

If this helps get our message out to a few more people who wouldn’t normally read this stuff, I guess it is worth a try.

I hear some people are addicted to Twitter.

MONKEYS ARE BUYING

It seems you shit throwing monkeys do buy shit for Christmas. You’ve bought $5,000 worth of shit in December so far through the Amazon button, netting TBP $300 in revenue. Jeff Bezos is feeling the pain.

The rest of you cheap bastards need to buy something for your mothers, wives, or kids.

bb – buy something for little bb.

SSS – buy a Golf for Dummies book.

Stuck – buy a book on how to sell a house.

Llpoh – buy a book on how to not get bit by a poisonous snake in Australia.

Bea – buy a book explaining freefall speed.

If you block the ads, here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gift-cards/b/ref=nav_cs_gc/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?ie=UTF8&node=2238192011&tag=thebur01-20&camp=226613&creative=523105&linkCode=ur1&adid=0P14JPP9AS909S3QPDPE&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theburningplatform.com%2F

How hedge-fund geniuses got beaten by monkeys — again

Guest Post by Brett Arends

The dumbest simple index will beat the smartest guys on the Street

These guys beat the average hedge-fund manager.

The average hedge fund has produced a worse investment performance in the first half of this year than a portfolio consisting of a savings account at your local bank and a random collection of stocks picked by a blindfolded monkey.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

According to the benchmark HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, tracked by Hedge Fund Research Inc., the average hedge fund has earned its investors just 2.4% so far this year net of fees.

By contrast, the average stock in the MSCI World index of the developed countries’ equity markets is up 7.7%.

Hedge-fund defenders object that it’s not fair to compare funds directly to the stock market, because hedge funds are “managing risk” and so on. You have to compare them to an overall balanced portfolio of stocks, bonds and cash, right?

OK.

A few years back a study conducted on behalf of the endowment of Cambridge University’s Clare College found that, historically, the best risk-managed simple portfolio for a long-term investor had usually been a balance of 80% stocks and 20% cash (or equivalent, such as Treasury bills), rebalanced once a year.

You can play around with simple portfolios but this will do as well as any. It’s about as simple as you can get.

Someone who put 20% of their money in a federally insured bank savings account, and the other 80% in a random collection of stocks from around the world, picked by monkeys, would be up about 6.2% so far this year. (And that’s assuming for the sake of simplicity that you earned 0% interest on the savings. In reality, you could have done slightly better)

In other words, they would still have earned more than twice the returns of the average hedge fund.

Continue reading “How hedge-fund geniuses got beaten by monkeys — again”