Would you be willing to completely copy another investor?

[Ver]

One of the best investors in the world has publicly posted his moves in real time for the last 10-15 years, while also candidly chatting about companies. This is someone who's beaten the SPX by over 30% annually for a couple decades.

 

Would you be willing to abandon your own investing and simply copy his (few) moves? This isn't cloning one position each from a variety of above average or well-marketed investors, but genuinely outsourcing all thinking to one exceptional person, including portfolio allocation. The combination of abandoning decision making but retaining the execution is a different phenomenon than handing over the money to a fund manager, which is entirely passive.

 

If no, would your answer change if your mother or wife — smart but without experience in business or finance — precisely copied his moves and killed your returns year after year?

 

The above is a real-life example. Not saying there's a right or wrong answer but psychologically it is interesting, in addition to the greater environmental factors that make this even possible. That being investing is a game where amateurs can beat professionals beyond indexes, where a housewife can outperform 99% of fund managers with minimal effort and stress. 

 

*Before anyone brings up buying Berkshire, this is different:

a) Buffett is managing other people's money, causing him to be extremely risk averse and less focused on maximizing long term returns than if he was managing his own

b) Significant age and AUM difference

c) Buffett's moves are 13f delayed and he doesn't talk candidly about companies

[Dinar]

Who is this person?  I would be happy to copy Sir Chris Hohn's moves in real time.  

[LC]

Need to keep ego in check to play this game. Feel free to post this individual's market crushing moves

[Gregmal]

2 hours ago, Dinar said:

Who is this person?  I would be happy to copy Sir Chris Hohn's moves in real time.  

Monish Pabrai?

[james22]

Would I be willing to completely copy another investor?

 

Never.

[UK]

6 hours ago, Ver said:

One of the best investors in the world has publicly posted his moves in real time for the last 10-15 years, while also candidly chatting about companies. This is someone who's beaten the SPX by over 30% annually for a couple decades.

 

Just give me a link:). I think if this is really real it would also be important for me to understand what he does (stock picking would be ok, trading some esoteric derivatives I am not sure) and his time frame (not sure how I would copy some HFT or even day trading).

[frommi]

Quote

This is someone who's beaten the SPX by over 30% annually for a couple decades. copy his (few) moves?

I really doubt that that is even possible. 40% annualy without high turnover is something i have never seen. Probably lots of leverage involved if true. Without understanding his process i would not copy him. If he has no process it was probably all luck and than i also wouldn't copy him. 

[73 Reds]

13 hours ago, Ver said:

One of the best investors in the world has publicly posted his moves in real time for the last 10-15 years, while also candidly chatting about companies. This is someone who's beaten the SPX by over 30% annually for a couple decades.

 

Would you be willing to abandon your own investing and simply copy his (few) moves? This isn't cloning one position each from a variety of above average or well-marketed investors, but genuinely outsourcing all thinking to one exceptional person, including portfolio allocation. The combination of abandoning decision making but retaining the execution is a different phenomenon than handing over the money to a fund manager, which is entirely passive.

 

If no, would your answer change if your mother or wife — smart but without experience in business or finance — precisely copied his moves and killed your returns year after year?

 

The above is a real-life example. Not saying there's a right or wrong answer but psychologically it is interesting, in addition to the greater environmental factors that make this even possible. That being investing is a game where amateurs can beat professionals beyond indexes, where a housewife can outperform 99% of fund managers with minimal effort and stress. 

 

*Before anyone brings up buying Berkshire, this is different:

a) Buffett is managing other people's money, causing him to be extremely risk averse and less focused on maximizing long term returns than if he was managing his own

b) Significant age and AUM difference

c) Buffett's moves are 13f delayed and he doesn't talk candidly about companies

What do you mean by "beaten the SPX by over 30% annually"?  Does this mean if SPX returned 10% that he did 13% or do you mean that if SPX returned 10% he did 40%?  The latter seems implausible.

[Xerxes]

Does his name rhymes with made-off

[Gamecock-YT]

nice burner account Monish

[Spekulatius]

If this investor has been in the business for decades and compounds at SPY +30%, this investor would be worth tens of billions, if he started out with any meaningful capital.

 

I am sure we would have heard from of him by now.

 

The only investor with such a track record is renaissance and you can’t copy them.

Edited October 3 by Spekulatius

[Malmqky]

If someone is really doing SPY+30% over multiple decades/cycles… well I’d rather just give them my family’s money to manage vs cloning them.

 

Who is it @Ver?

[nsx5200]

IMHO, I think the wise investor would/should use it just like any other screener.  Also, the game dynamic changes at certain points of the asset class, so unless that investor is smart enough to realize that, that investor may 'flame out', which we've seen with many past 'great' investors.  That's the thing about investment incentives, what worked in the past(small sums) might not work in the future(large sums), and some investors can't make that transition.

[bizaro86]

If the person had a process I could understand I'd do so with at least a segregated portion of my funds.

 

I'd definitely be very interested in seeing the picks for further research. If it's someone posting publicly I echo the requests for a link (posted or by PM!)

[Vish_ram]

This is just a modern day version of Nigerian email scam. 

 

I'm sure some patsies will privately DM the poster for joining such a scam. There should be some subscription list that is getting peddled.

 

A investor with great returns will soon manage money and in no time will cross $100MM. Then 13F has to be filed and it is not in real time. 

 

SInce 1994, S&P returned 10.4%, now the mystery investor makes 40%. A 10K compounded at 40% over 30 years yields $242MM.

Edited October 3 by Vish_ram

[thowed]

This thread is some excellent clickbait.

[UK]

1 hour ago, thowed said:

This thread is some excellent clickbait.

 

Then:

 

 

[Jaygo]

There is a newsletter "nates notes" his portfolio has basically killed it over 20 odd years as afar as I know. 

[Saluki]

Well if by "30%", you mean that if the index averages 10%, then you get 13%, that's plausible. But if you mean the nominal percentage plus a nominal 30% (40% yoy), then I call BS.  

 

Also, unless you can have them trade for you, you won't get there by copying.  13fs come out every quarter, and some investors like Burry churn a lot so you won't get much info from their reports.  Some people like Jim Simons at Renaissance or other algorithmic traders may be making hundreds of trades a second, so it's not something you can do without millions in equipment and an army of quants. 

 

Second if your personality doesn't match the strategy, you won't be able to do it.  Buffett can hold a stock for decades.  If you can't, then you will lose patience and sell or "tweak" it a little to improve it and it will destroy the results. 

 

Third, in huge disruptions where a lot of money is made or lost you will get killed because you can clone their strategy, but you can't clone their conviction and if you don't understand why they bought, then you won't know if you should sell. 

 

Seeing what others that you respect are buying or selling is a good filter if you want to do look further into something.  But would you let your doctor operate on you without asking what you have, where they are cutting you open,  and why they are doing surgery?  Isn't that what completely copying someone is? 

[villainx]

10 hours ago, Vish_ram said:

I'm sure some patsies will privately DM the poster for joining such a scam. There should be some subscription list that is getting peddled.

 

I was just going to do that, but don't know how to send DMs here.  Phew.

[Gregmal]

Related in a way to this subject, there are people I am very familiar with, who if they’ve done the work on something and it’s new to me, I will give that a lot of weight in terms of how quickly I can put an idea in the actionable category. For instance, GRIF was a @BG2008 special. It’s a microcap real estate name which is my bread and butter, so when my man was getting a hard on for it, I was able to do minimal work to verify on my own, and then largely jump in aggressively knowing BG is an animal on the due diligence front and if it passed his inspection, I would be good. And it turned out how I expected it to, almost to a T. 
 

So I’d say you need to have personal thresholds, but also go with instinct and find shortcuts, especially if you’re a one man/small operation type of investor. Conversely there are people who if they own something I just immediately write it off lol. I think awhile ago someone joked if @thepupil, @BG2008, @Williams406, and @Gregmal all were involved in a name, it was money. I think that criteria is still batting a thousand. 

[brobro777]

Hell yea I would definitely copy another guy if what he was doing was compatible with my temperament and I could execute like he could. If it's too crazy or I don't have the chops to handle what the guy was doing (for example if he's too much of a cowboy) then I'd say no but otherwise, I'd copy and paste all day long

 

I get that there are guys here reading books and industry reports and etc all the time (probably 500 pages a day that Buffett talked about https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/27/warren-buffetts-key-tip-for-success-read-500-pages-a-day.html) but that's for nerds and I am way too lazy to do that

 

I would free ride and make money off other people all day baby, all day

 

[Ver]

Hah the skepticism! I have no reason to make any of this up. 

 

Anyway the original person mentioned is Duan Yongping. Of course he's known, he's even Buffett and Li Lu's friend. That was without leverage, and the number is being conservative based on public data. Naturally the returns fall over time once assets grow into the billions. But to keep it simple, when you start with $2-3M and grow into a few tens of billions in 22 years of your own money, even with injecting some new cash in between you're still going get a very big annual return number.

 

Nor is it such an outlandish figure either. Buffett beat the Dow by 35-40% before he started managing other's money, though he did use a large bank loan. We'll never know what his real returns would have been if he never managed outside money. Reece Duca did significantly better than that, albeit with leverage, and he's only done one public interview ever. There are assuredly many more who stay below the radar and only manage their own money.

 

The top 0.1% or whatever of investors will have outstanding results, this should hardly be surprising. The question is how to best use and learn from this with limited time and attention. The extreme answer being like the mother mentioned in the OP, trusting and rigidly copying them. That's the interesting part, like what Gregmal shared.

[nsx5200]

@Luke brought up Duan in the Prosus post as well.

 

It's seems a bit weird to me that he would chose to hold BABA ADR instead of SEHK:9988.  Anybody know why?

[UK]

1 hour ago, Ver said:

Hah the skepticism! I have no reason to make any of this up. 

 

Anyway the original person mentioned is Duan Yongping. Of course he's known, he's even Buffett and Li Lu's friend. That was without leverage, and the number is being conservative based on public data. Naturally the returns fall over time once assets grow into the billions. But to keep it simple, when you start with $2-3M and grow into a few tens of billions in 22 years of your own money, even with injecting some new cash in between you're still going get a very big annual return number.

 

Nor is it such an outlandish figure either. Buffett beat the Dow by 35-40% before he started managing other's money, though he did use a large bank loan. We'll never know what his real returns would have been if he never managed outside money. Reece Duca did significantly better than that, albeit with leverage, and he's only done one public interview ever. There are assuredly many more who stay below the radar and only manage their own money.

 

The top 0.1% or whatever of investors will have outstanding results, this should hardly be surprising. The question is how to best use and learn from this with limited time and attention. The extreme answer being like the mother mentioned in the OP, trusting and rigidly copying them. That's the interesting part, like what Gregmal shared.

 

https://13f.info/13f/000108514624003861-h-h-international-investment-llc-q2-2024

 

US holdings: AAPL:)

 

Is there any way to know how his total portfolio looks like?

 

Edited October 4 by UK