PA Homerun Stories?
What were some of your best (and worst...) plays in your PA? Anyone 10x it or lose it all during COVID?
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Went all-in on GME in October/November 2020. Solid 7-digit payday holding to see if it'll turn into 8+.
doubled my money on GME in 2 days, getting in after the dip/out after the bounce back. due to responsible risk management this wasn't a big deal to my account, but it was fun.
adding a few k of SPX last year in april - 50%+ gain in 1 year. this is actually moderately significant to account value
(yes im poor and have a <50k account)
Have a friend who made serious money on the Bitcoin/crypto initial run-up early in covid. He said he saw all the cryptos as like tech start-ups disrupting gold. I checked in with him later on and he told me that he like lost all of his gains somehow (no clue how) and was trying to get his gains back. I haven’t checked in with him since.
I made a 1.1x MoM and like a 150% IRR on my BTC investment
nbd... I'll be here all week...
Lol. Nice. Good for you haha :). Gains are gains…
Sounds like he went long on dogecoin.
Lol maybe. My recollection is that his gains took place meaningfully before the run-up with doge. Before he left his job, I met with his boss in like early 2019 (pre pandemic pre run up) and already then his boss was saying crypto was going to be huge. So I figure he / his employee might have been fairly early in the latest bull market, pre the doge / meme stock frenzy
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Any proper HF professional wouldn’t have that much risk in their entire PA
I hear. I think I’ve heard anecdotally from my friends in Hf that they may be up to 5% in crypto. Except for maybe one of them who seems to be all-in and is starting his own crypto fund.
Best I did was 100% in a few months in renewables stocks. Still not bad, but I'd like to admit I'd like to have a ten bagger.
The elusive 10 bagger… haha. Ever heard of Fannie and Freddie? Lol. Those have been talked about as a potential 10 bagger for a while. I think there might be a thread on CornerofBerkshireandFairfax titled that about those stocks
I'll take a look at it, thanks a lot!
Got into crypto right after the 2018 crash. Accumulated some more through 2019. Thought it was going to all be worthless in 2020, but just held as you kind of have to think of it as 0 anyways. Unfortunately didn't add more at the lows. Took profit on some earlier this year, locking in about 10-15x total return, which was about low 6 figures total (regardless if it all goes to 0 now).
Rode the rest of it, got close to 40x with what I had remaining? (close to 7 figures) at the crypto highs, now back to about 20x total lol. See how it goes from here (have no plans of selling the rest unless it gets to something crazy), but it's not looking great. Maybe in a few years...
BTC 250k :)
Long BATRA
Had been 100% cash. Pushed 60% into the market across indexes (equities and credit) and individual names. Was going to go more but the markets rebounded too quick and I was waiting for the second drop that never came. Overall have about doubled my money - some investments especially in the energy sector are up ~5x. Think is a lot of room to go through cycle. Like everyone, got lucky in that the markets recovered so quick....but most of my ideas were thought to be 3 to 5 year holds at entry so I was and am in it for the long haul.
I did similar, but I actually went from 0 to 100% into equities in March 2020. I was buying while the whole world was losing its mind. PnL multiple millions over 16 months. I've now reduced my exposure somewhat as things are less clearly a steal at these price levels.
Only thing I kick myself for is that I didn't lever up beyond 100%.
Nice that's great. Respect on the decisiveness. I was too greedy trying to bottom tick, annoying.
Not sure you should kick yourself on the leverage part. From a long term perspective buying things down 30/40/50/60/70+% makes senses for a through cycle recovery - assuming they had the balance sheet of course. But as early as March, frankly even into April/May/June it was way too early to know 1) the feds reaction, and 2) the rate in which vaccines came back. The recovery could have easily taken much longer and even leveled off at much lower levels. The leverage exposure could have been either expensive or worse a margin call. Of course that isn't what happened but no one knew that back then.
I agree on the fundamentals, it could have turned out worse. But the liquidity crunch aspect was so clear to me, and the fed was clearly going to jump on it. We only get opportunities like this every 5-10 years, gotta make the most of them.
That's awesome man, good for you. Couple of questions -- before March 2020, how big was your PA (over a mil/half a mil)? Also can you give a rough estimate of what % your PA is of your total NW today? Would you say you took on a shit ton of risk? Also, would you say your performance is "realistic" for a relatively senior HF guy in a crazy year like 2020 (those years do present themselves once a decade I guess)?
I will be working in MF PE after school (most likely), and plan on pivoting to a HF after 2 years. Any tips for a multi million dollar PA over the next 10-15 years 😂
All my stuff's tied up in the fund, haven't been liquid in a while. How many positions did you have on in your PA during COVID, and did you also overall 2x your money like Senior VP in HF? I'm assuming 2020 was a blowout for you; just out of curiosity what kind of performance #s (% wise) would you say you put up in an average year? Well done!!
Jesus man that's crazy. Do you own any RE other than your house, or are you just cash/stock? Also how much of your total comp do you throw into your PA? I'm leaving banking soon, and I have ~$150k straight cash on the sidelines rn, plan on throwing all of it into my PA the second I leave. I'm relatively frugal and have a few side hustles, so I can live on my base (I'm going to a SM HF). I'm probably just gonna throw like 50-75% of my bonus into my PA. Praying there's another 2020 type year in the next 5-10 years so I can make it rain
sir what is your net worth, roughly speaking, and how old you ~?
X
Had one 7x (2yrs), one 4x (3yrs), and another 3x (6 months). Am still in the first two as they're the two biggest weights in my PA, redeployed funds from the 3rd into a more attractive opp. Don't know how many of these are repeatable tricks as the first two benefitted from digital acceleration due to Covid
After maxing 401k and paying taxes / expenses, 80-90% of my money goes into my PA. Other 10-20% goes into private deals. Definitely a bold way to play things, but I'm in my mid-20s and I have a lot of conviction in things I'm buying. That said when I'm 30, will be diversify a lot more on incremental dollars but likely keep all my PA money in the PA & just redeploy if needed
what sorts of private deals do you have access to in your mid-20s?
Firm runs a couple private strategies and we can often co invest on the deals
Put around 5% of my assets in BTC/ETH (75/25 split) last May. I've made about 5x overall and took most of my gains (realized a 4x) earlier this year when BTC was still around $55k. Still have some in there which I'm continuing to hold for the time being but wanted to avoid the position being such a large portion of my NW that I'd beat myself up if it pulled back... glad I did that in hindsight as we sit here 50% below the peak.
Had some bad trades during COVID though... mortgage REITs in particular really fucked me. Fortunately the crypto trade worked out well so I offset my bad decisions elsewhere.
Was lucky to do the trade in size... most of my big gainers in the past haven't been large enough to be very meaningful.
Not truly a COVID only play, but its been going well for a few years now. Bought Puts on SNAP in 2018 when it was close to $20 and rode it down to $5, then bought in with a few grand and held. Currently like an 10-12 bagger. Only wish I had bought more.
I started buying DOCU several months after its IPO and had a price basis in the low 50s. Since the beginning of 2020 the price has grown from 50 to closing today over 300 per share, I've held the majority of the original position for the entire move.
My firm doesnt allow investment in any single name securities or derivatives, not even if it's reported/declared/with a minimum holding period.
Effectively the only instruments I can buy are ETFs. Very challenging, is there anyone else with the same restrictions?
Yup, same here. We even need to preclear ETFs as well which is a hassle (we also only get to buy or sell 30 transactions every quarter), so I’ve resorted to buying index mutual funds and crypto (which do not need to be disclosed) lol. Guess you could call that a barbell or some shit
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