Simple As...:

While they're not necessarily specific to HFs - Value Investors Club, Distressed Debt Investors Club, SumZero

Are you actually a member at any of these websites? I checked out sumzero before, didn't remember it though.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

Member of DDIC, it's okay, pretty slow at the moment, with no real dialog between users.

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

Not really. I think because there isn't a lot of back and forth there isn't too much value to the site.

I try to start dialogue on names which interest me, but people rarely check it. And the comment function isn't intuitive.

My favourite part of my job (distressed / special sits desk analyst) is bouncing ideas off clients. Even when you're getting drilled on your thesis that's fun, it's when you learn.

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

I stopped using both SZ and DDIC after i got into VIC a few years back. VIC gets the best ideas from both of those sites and the many in depth discussions have a high signal-to-noise ratio. The only issue for most people with VIC is that it's extremely difficult to get into. They probably get 50 well researched "short tsla" ideas a day for applications, and reject all of them.

 

I'm kind of thinking whether I should come up with something and submit it, just to see if I were accepted. How long does it usually take for them to come back to you?

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

I applied a while back and heard within 2 weeks. 2-3 weeks is the norm I think. Also, make sure your ideas are really interesting. I know it goes without saying, but the difference in quality between SA and VIC is there for a reason. SA just regurgitates the company's filings while VIC actually tells you stuff that you only get from putting many sources and interesting perspectives together.

The idea I submitted was a home run - and I knew it too. It was a short that ended up returning 80%. But good ideas aren't enough. It's all about execution and telling a good story. My writeup was boring, which is why I think I was rejected. I haven't gotten around to another submission. Waiting for the right idea.

 
RLC1:

I stopped using both SZ and DDIC after i got into VIC a few years back. VIC gets the best ideas from both of those sites and the many in depth discussions have a high signal-to-noise ratio. The only issue for most people with VIC is that it's extremely difficult to get into. They probably get 50 well researched "short tsla" ideas a day for applications, and reject all of them.

If you don't mind me asking, what sector did your idea come from and how many weeks did you spend preparing it? This isn't very relevant but I find guidelines very useful.

Also, as a member, how useful have you found VIC?

[quote]The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.[/quote]
 

My application write-up was a mid-cap industrial company that is way off the radar. This was a unique situation where I had just looked at a private investment north of this company in the supply chain, and discovered that there was a major shift taking place in the space that had not been widely reported. When I looked at the targetco through the lens of this changing landscape, it was about 30 seconds of work before I realized the magnitude of the mispricing. From there it was just 2-3 days to do all the necessary analysis and write it up. I don't remember how long VIC took to accept me but I had been rejected a bunch of times before and my recollection is that the time to acceptance/rejection can vary significantly, from a few weeks to a few months.

I find VIC to be an invaluable resource.

 
RLC1:

My application write-up was a mid-cap industrial company that is way off the radar. This was a unique situation where I had just looked at a private investment north of this company in the supply chain, and discovered that there was a major shift taking place in the space that had not been widely reported. When I looked at the targetco through the lens of this changing landscape, it was about 30 seconds of work before I realized the magnitude of the mispricing. From there it was just 2-3 days to do all the necessary analysis and write it up. I don't remember how long VIC took to accept me but I had been rejected a bunch of times before and my recollection is that the time to acceptance/rejection can vary significantly, from a few weeks to a few months.

I find VIC to be an invaluable resource.

Many thanks, that just made me want to try it.

[quote]The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.[/quote]
 
bluegold:

My fund's mandate is small cap natural resources. The forums out there for my sector are... interesting

Can you elaborate in the last part?

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

nmonkey is partially correct. It used to be limited to 250 members; now the number is somewhat higher than that. But it is still very difficult to get into, with an acceptance rate lower than any ivy league university.

I would concede that quality has fallen a bit over the last 12-18 months due to the diminishing opportunity set for value investors over the same time period. There are also going to be more iffy ideas when you have more members, but the write-up quality on average is still extremely high for an anonymous online stock message board, and there are various incentives in place which will ensure that such quality is maintained going forward.

There are a couple of members (two in particular) who really seem to post a lot on the site. One of them (C) posts stock-related info that may not be super deep but that is at least related to the goal of idea sharing. The other (A) writes a lot of messages that are just pontifications, and I find those to be little more than clutter. But as a general comment, if I ask direct questions on an idea, I get good, direct answers. Which is what I care about.

 
RLC1:

There are a couple of members (two in particular) who really seem to post a lot on the site. One of them (C) posts stock-related info that may not be super deep but that is at least related to the goal of idea sharing. The other (A) writes a lot of messages that are just pontifications, and I find those to be little more than clutter.

You know what's up

You're right though. The quality is still there. I guess I should have just said that it now takes effort to sift through junk to find it.

 

yeah, the functionality they've built in (look at all the rules and systems they have in place under FAQ) doens't make this an easy, addition, plus we don't have the critical mass (yet), I believe, to get enough quality ideas consistently into a private investing forum. Maybe I'm wrong, but if we can't fill in this public forum: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investing-ideas-stock-market-macro…

hard for me to believe we're ready to add something at that level...we did have @"Bondarb" (i think) start a fantasy macro trading competition that was gaining some traction, so maybe there is some hope..

other thoughts? Patrick

 
The management of VIC agreed to disclose that the preponderance of VIC members are long-focused fundamentals-based hedge fund managers that have small to mid-size assets under management ($10 million to $250 million).

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1499341

The real shame is that the best members naturally 'age' out of VIC. For example, both Michael Burry and Bill Ackman were members in the very beginning. As you get larger, hire a team of analysts, and have better research resources, the need for VIC naturally diminishes. The obvious benefit is to the small one- or two-person shop where the PM/analyst is trading thoughts with other PM/analyst.

It seems clear that with the explosion of "hedge funds," that the person managing a $200mm fund back in 2001 was of different quality than a person with a similar fund today. Even in Einhorn's 2010 book, he made this point by saying that Siegler Collery had $150mm AUM, and that "today, a similar sized fund would have a couple of billion dollars."

 
MMmonkey:

It seems clear that with the explosion of "hedge funds," that the person managing a $200mm fund back in 2001 was of different quality than a person with a similar fund today. Even in Einhorn's 2010 book, he made this point by saying that Siegler Collery had $150mm AUM, and that "today, a similar sized fund would have a couple of billion dollars."

Interesting point, but everyone starts out small. even today.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 
Best Response

This conversation has deviated from the original topic... but i'll bite:

  • The reason that people from brand name funds have bigger launches is unrelated to their talent and ability to make money. It's almost entirely related to the fact that allocators and the people that advise them are universally mega pussies who are incentivized by career risk (i.e. "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"). If they were incentivized by performance, they would allocate to unknown autistic managers with great research who promise to close their funds at $50m.

  • If you hear that somebody starts out with a $100m fund today, you should assume they are a rockstar. In order to do that, you are probably taking a seed investment from a Blackstone et al, which is a high hurdle. If they did that without a seeder, in 2014, that means that they are an especially big deal.

  • Actually, if you hear that somebody started with $20 million predominantly from people that didn't give birth to them, you should assume they are a very smart and trustworthy person.

  • There are plenty of people on VIC managing $1b+, including some big names that dampen the panties of wso users. There are also plenty of people on VIC managing a couple hundo in their PA.

 
RLC1:
The reason that people from brand name funds have bigger launches is unrelated to their talent and ability to make money.

I am saying that people with small launches would be better off running sleeves at large firms. Obtaining a sleeve at a large firm is related to talent and ability to make money.

RLC1:
- If you hear that somebody starts out with a $100m fund today, you should assume they are a rockstar. In order to do that, you are probably taking a seed investment from a Blackstone et al, which is a high hurdle. If they did that without a seeder, in 2014, that means that they are an especially big deal. - Actually, if you hear that somebody started with $20 million predominantly from people that didn't give birth to them, you should assume they are a very smart and trustworthy person.

Apparently I am cross-talking with everyone on this thread. You are making my point for me. If you hear that somebody runs a $500mm+ sleeve inside a large firm, you should assume they are a rockstar. In order to do that, you are probably killing it for the head guy enough to be a threat to leave and take a seed investment from a Blackstone et al, which is a high hurdle. If choose to run the sleeve rather than do a seed deal with Blackstone, that means you are an especially big deal--because (a) you are probably giving up less on the internal split than you would with a seeder and (b) you can have capital added to your base based on performance rather than marketing. Actually, if you hear that a some analyst got to a $500mm sleeve starting with $20mm entirely from their senior PM that is acutely aware of performance and ability, you should assume they are a very smart and trustworthy person.

RLC1:
- There are plenty of people on VIC managing $1b+, including some big names that dampen the panties of wso users. There are also plenty of people on VIC managing a couple hundo in their PA.

Are there really? I know that at Ira Sohn 2011, David Einhorn said that Greenlight would post an idea on VIC (which was HCA), but that idea was posted by a new (burner) account. That account--which was probably manned by a Greenlight analyst--only answered one question on the message thread. If you are saying analysts at large shops are on VIC, then yes--of course. If you are saying big name PMs, then I was/am not aware of that.

 
thepie:

I would hate to know who on there manages how much money to be honest. Why do I care about how big your dick is when that's not the head I'm concerned with?

Agreed. I only got off on the tangent in trying to hypothesize why the discussion quality has declined over the past couple of years on VIC. RLC1 conceded that quality has decreased, but I think that he thought I was referring to ideas. He is correct that idea quality is only based on opportunity set. You can't manufacture good ideas. I was more referring to random 'discussions' that are really just short bursts of disjointed thoughts that not proliferate VIC. I would love to hear any other theories on why this has only happened in the last ~2 years. I have been on VIC since 2007 and made it a point to read old ideas back then. It is noticeably different now, for the worse.

 

I'm sure you know the usuals - Bloomberg, Economist, etc for the general going-ons in the financial world. I'll list some here that are more specific and off-the-beaten-path, from the serious to the entertaining:

http://www.insidermonkey.com/

https://greenbackd.com/

http://www.gurufocus.com/

https://village-us.albourne.com/

https://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/value2/Member/MemberHomePage

http://www.opalesque.com/

https://secure.hedgeindex.com/hedgeindex/en/prlist.aspx?typeid=0&cy=USD

http://www.hedgeweek.com/

http://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/

and last but not least, strictly for entertainment, but enter with caution (NSFW):

http://www.hedgeho.com/

 

I'd agree that the quality of ideas on VIC has gotten worse recently but I think it's more due to lack of opportunity than lack of quality writers. Some of the very good writers haven't written in almost a year and one of them that has written recently just wrote a short on an already heavily shorted name. From what I understand, VIC is superior to any other site out there and is probably the only one that you can even consider getting out as much from the comment section as the actual write-up. I do find a fair portion of the write-ups to be promotional in the sense that they prop up estimates and downplay risks. Also, expect every author to already have a full position in their PA or fund before posting.

I've been able to backward deduce where some of the authors are from including the (C) from above. I'd say that it def ranges from new funds/very small funds to megafunds.

Also, it's not just hedge funds writing on VIC -- I know some writers are from very well regarded mutual funds also. I'm not a member but assume I have a very reasonable shot at getting in. It's amusing how many of the ideas I've looked at turn up on VIC a week after I start looking.

FWIW it's backed by Joel Greenblatt who probably capitalizes on some of the ideas before others. Prizes and site expenses are minuscule costs for him.

 
floppity:

I'd agree that the quality of ideas on VIC has gotten worse recently but I think it's more due to lack of opportunity than lack of quality writers. Some of the very good writers haven't written in almost a year and one of them that has written recently just wrote a short on an already heavily shorted name.

Good points. There was a discussion last year about VIC tenure and membership churn where certain users were cited as missed.

FWIW it's backed by Joel Greenblatt who probably capitalizes on some of the ideas before others. Prizes and site expenses are minuscule costs for him.

[/quote]

He had a seeding business that funded VIC members

 

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