HF Naming: Gravitas indicates poor performance

A recently published study called "Hedge Fund Flows and Name Gravitas*" claims to "We also document that having a name with gravitas is associated with abnormal negative performance: high name gravitas funds have lower returns, alphas, Sharpe ratios and manipulation-proof performance measures, higher volatilities and maximum drawdowns as well as higher probabilities of extinction than the funds with lower name gravitas.

Any thoughts from you monkeys?

 

I really like the names you mentioned, Renaissance Technologies and Two Sigma. I also think that Icahn Enterprises sounds cool since it reminds me of Batman and Wayne Enterprises...

I skimmed through the paper, and they have some tables at the end about the determinants of the gravitas, along with some other statistics about the gravitas and inflows. I think it also says somewhere that the name gravitas sensitivity diminishes the more they learn about the fund, although it still seems pretty crazy.

 

I think coolness and gravitas are two different things, but I think this is more about people who intentionally name their funds something that imply strong performance or are associated with wealth generation - something like 'extreme value creation fund' would be considered to have 'gravitas'.

Life's is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
 

Hedge Fund Mad Lib:

1) {Color, obscure town name, mild adjective}: Black, Silver, Blue, York, Owl, Hope, Lone, Lexington 2) {Nature item, reference item}: Pine, Lake, Forest, River, Creek, Mountain, Square, Point 3) {Ending}: Capital, Fund, Capital Management, Advisors, Associates, LP, LLC

The coolest name is still Long Term Capital Management though, which is about as dry as it gets.

 
Best Response

I love this, though essentially all the 'good' names that follow have been taken. You can pretty much choose any name really though - the goal is to become prominent enough that YOU make the name, the name doesn't make you

LTCM is cool b/c of what it evokes (the mad scientists and the crash), not b/c it was just cool. If SAC wasn't a legendary fund it might sound lame to name your fund your initials. Lone Pine, Pershing, Viking - those names immediately evoke the performance/prestige of the funds they represent, not the other way around

 

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