A godfather who is investing in the godfather

The tiger left, 90 years old.

This week, Julian Robertson, the founder of the Tiger Fund, has died at the age of 90 recently due to complications of heart complications. This is an unexpected leaving -originally in October, Robertson will publish his only biography "Tiger Fund Julian Robertson" in China.

Born in 1932, Robertson was the godfather of the US hedge fund world. He and Soros and Stanhart also called the hedge fund giants. In the 1990s, Wall Street had the same name with Buffett. In 1980, he founded the Tiger Fund with one hand and brought hedge funds into the mainstream vision. During his heyday, he managed more than $ 20 billion. However, in the Internet wave at the end of the last century, the Tiger Fund was defeated until it was announced in 2000.

"He had created an amazing return of 18 years, but was abandoned because he refused to bend in the bubble of technology stocks, but the big collapse of the following proved his correctness." A domestic private equity fund man commented. After walking down the stage, Robertson's influence is still: the origin of nearly 200 hemium fund companies can be traced back to the Tiger Fund, and many fund founders have worked at the Tiger Fund. It can be said that Robertson has created a dynasty in the hedge fund industry with his own power.

Tiger prequel:

Youth town, north to Wall Street

In 1932, Robertson was born in a southern town named Solzburi in the United States. Robertson has a rich life since childhood. His mother is kind, and often goes to the local community to be volunteers. His father, Robertson, was quite successful. He was the founder of a state bank and a financial leader of a textile company.

Affected by his father, Robertson has shown a strong interest in stocks since he was a child. He often sit on the floor of the living room and discuss the financial report of listed companies with his sister to study which company's income is relatively high. After school, Robertson showed a strong talent in mathematics. Although he did not like class and exams, he always led in economic courses.

In 1955, 23 -year -old Robertson signed up to join the army and became a naval colonel. The serving of the navy made him "truly feel personal responsibility" for the first time. Many years later Robertson recalled that it was this experience that he taught him how to become a leader in his financial career and how to take responsibility for his investors.

After retiring two years later, Robertson brought some funds given by his father to New York and began to be a sales apprentice on Kidbipi, Wall Street, and became a trading agent. He has been there for 22 years, and he has taken a turn of various positions on sales, and eventually became the manager of the company's fund management branch, Weberst.

Because he is frank, his reputation in the company is good. Customers and colleagues have idle funds or issued bonuses, and they all like to give him help to manage. During this period, Robertson's economy can gradually appear. No matter what the broader market performs, he can help everyone make money.

In the spring of 1970, Robertson happened to meet a person who had a profound influence on him in the future -Alfred Winslo Jones. For the first time, he proposed the concept of hedge fund. In the subsequent contact, Jones's many views on the stock market have deeply affected Robertson. For the first time, he learned "short". At that time, the concept of shorting was still fresh on Wall Street, but the plunge in the stock market in 1975 made Robertson realize that the operation of shorting was also very valuable and could get more benefits.

What is short? In simple terms, if a large number of analysis can be judged that the price of a certain securities is too high, it will fall sooner or later. Then, you can find a securities holder, borrow this person's securities to sell on the market, pay him a fee, and buy it when the securities price falls, and give it to the original holder. With the price difference of selling prices and buying prices caused by securities decline, the cost of deducting transactions can earn a generous profit.

After witnessing Jones's success, Robertson began to put his attention on hedge funds. He realized that he had to start a business and be an unmanned fund.

In May 1980, Robertson and his then partner Sop McKinsey founded a hedge fund for the initial fund of $ 8 million. At first, the two people thought about the company's name for a long time. Occasionally, Robertson's 7 -year -old son proposed that it was called "Tiger", because every time Robertson couldn't call other people's name, he called "Tiger".

In the subsequent investment, Robertson played the competitiveness of the tiger. He has always warned the team to "firm conviction, only buy the best stocks, and short -time stocks." The Tiger Fund also achieved a 54.9%fee of 54.9%in the year. The average return of the six years later was as high as 32.7%, and the records were refreshed again and again, becoming the largest giant in the history of hedging funds.

No one thought that in the next 20 years, the Tiger Foundation will be invincible like a tiger, deeply inspiring in the minds of every Wall Street.

Once in charge of more than $ 20 billion

Eventually fell on the eve of the breakthrough of the Internet bubble

There are many wonderful battles between Robertson and Tiger Fund.

On the eve of the spring of 1995, there was a lot of fluctuations in the commodity copper market. A little bit of copper prices seem to be rising. This is a short project that Robertson and Tiger Fund's analysts have racked their brains, but it was a bit optimistic at that time.

It turned out that in the 1994 study, Robertson and the team discovered that the price of copper is constantly rising, but the demand has not changed, and there are even signs of decrease. After discussions with analysts and internal pedestrians, he concluded that the demand for commodity copper is indeed decreased, and there will be no signs of demand in the short term. So they decided to short -time commodity copper. In fact, this phenomenon was discovered at the time and the tiger fund was not only short. However, when the spring of 1995 came, the copper price of the commodity suddenly began to rise, and investors who were short before could not support it.

Everyone thinks that the price of commodity copper will rise higher and higher. Investors who have had a unanimous view of the Tiger Fund can only stop the loss in time, and have been seen for nearly a year, and many funds return. Only the Tiger Fund was motionless, and even slowly increased the position of short -term short of commodity copper.

Until the turning point finally appeared.

In early 1996, a resident company, one of the world's largest commodity copper trading companies, released news that a trader was not clean in the commodity copper transaction and raised the price of copper. After the incident of the East Window, the copper price fell more than 30%in May of that year. The price of futures copper in September fell to 87.8 cents per pound. Just one year ago, the price was soaring at more than $ 1.25 per pound.

After this, a large number of investors lost heavy losses, and only Robertson and Tiger Fund made a lot of money. Afterwards, Robertson concluded that in fact, his team could not expect what the commodity copper market would happen. They just concluded through a series of facts and data analysis. With this faith, the Tiger Fund persisted in the end, and Robertson became famous in Wall Street.

The commodity copper is just the beginning. Since then, Robertson has shortly made a series of projects such as Japanese stocks and Thai baht. The followers have also been very amazing. In addition, he also has a name -Wall Street Witcher. This is the title given to him after his repeated prediction of economic phenomena has become a reality.

In 1991, the assets of the Tiger Fund had reached $ 1 billion, and it has risen rapidly since then. In 1996, it rose to $ 7 billion. Before exiting, the assets managed by Tiger Fund increased from $ 8.8 million to more than $ 20 billion, becoming a well -deserved boss in the hedge fund industry.

It was a glorious years belonging to Robertson -no matter how the market runs, the Tiger Fund seems to be able to win the voucher most of the time. During the heyday of 1997, the performance of the Tiger Fund rose more than 70%, while the S & P500 Index and the MSCI index rose only 33.4%and 15.8%, respectively. The compound returns (deductible all costs) brought by investors during operation reached 31.7%.

The prosperity was declining, and this simple truth was finally fulfilled in the Tiger Fund. After 1998, as the Internet fought, the Tiger Fund began to retreat. Robertson once admitted that he couldn't understand anyway. Internet companies had no assets, few customers, and small income, but their IPOs were very successful. Soon, the Tiger Fund ushered in the most dull moment since its establishment.

Investors have desperately withdrawn, and the size of the Tiger Fund has fallen from the peak of more than $ 20 billion to $ 6.5 billion. Robertson and his team worked hard to seek acquisitions in the last period of time, but in the end, because the acquirer did not reach an agreement on the protection of investors. In March 2000, Robertson chose to dissolve the fund and return all the remaining assets to investors.

Robertson wrote in the letter to the investor before closing the fund:

At present, the performance needs of investors, fund managers and even financial buyers have promoted technology, Internet and telecommunications boom, which is unknowingly creating a Ponzi pyramid that is destined to collapse. However, in the current environment, the only strategy to produce short -term performance is to buy these stocks. This strategy continues the investment process until this pyramid eventually collapses due to its excessive expansion.

The dramatic thing is that just a few weeks after Robertson decided to close the Tiger Fund, technology stocks collapsed. Nasdaq has shrunk by nearly 80%of the market value in less than three years, and the Internet bubble breaks.

Robertson's old friend once said, "He has the best animal instincts in the jungle." But countless people who are amazed by his God's predictions may be difficult to imagine. After day after day, watching the booming Internet stock market, under the pressure of constantly withdrawing capital in investors, can insist on the judgment of the past. Investment is much more difficult.

The tiger has become a singing

He left these thoughts and revelations

The Sri Lanka has passed, but no one can erase Robertson's influence on the entire Wall Street. To this day, the success and lessons of Robertson and Tiger Fund have been analyzed and studied over and over again.

From the perspective of the industry, the study of data and information of the Tiger Fund has been unattended. When the Tiger Fund was established, there was no Internet. The team analysts needed to go to Tiannan North to conduct a detailed research on each project to get first -hand data.

Robertson's own requirements for information are extremely rigorous. Earlier, an analyst suggested that the stock of a Korean car company, he made a series of studies and found that there was a problem with the engine of the company's car. According to analysts' research, once the problem is exposed, it is enough to put the company in trouble. However, Robertson believes that the analysts have received second -hand information. In order to verify the information, they bought two cars in the company and tested the engine before they decided to take short stocks. Data and information are all the foundations that Robertson make and insist on judging. With detailed data for reference, Robertson also attaches importance to the blessing of new ideas. He often trains employees to obtain creativity through brainstorming. On Friday, lunch is the source of inspiration for the Tiger Fund.

At this time, a group of analysts sit around the table and explain their investment ideas in turn. Robertson likes simple and powerful narrative, "Either go straight in a single knife, or don't say it." Some employees introduced that each spokesman only had a time statement of about 5 minutes. It is worth incorporating an investment portfolio. Analysts need to use 4 words to summarize their investment ideas, and these 4 sentences may be the preparation they have made in 6 months.

Robertson is also very good at using resources. During the sales of Wall Street, Robertson practiced the ability to deal with people. He has a long address book that can seize all friends who can make friends. A reporter who had seen Robertson's phone calling with his own eyes teased, "The rapid dialing function of the phone was invented for him." When the Tiger Fund needs new ideas, he also often borrows investors' ideas and resources.

After Robertson retired, he did not leave the financial circle. In the original office, 15 funds including Tiger Shark Management, Tiger Asia, Tiger Technology, Tiger Consumer Partners, and Emerging Sovereign Group were still running. Nearly 40 fund managers who resigned from the Tiger Fund to start a business have also achieved great results. The McFik Fund's Lee Ensley, John Griffin of Lanshan Capital, Andreas Ha, Viking Capital Er Watson, etc., has since become a new star in the hedging fund industry.

Among them, it is more familiar with the Global Fund of the Fund, the founder of the Fund, the founder of the Facebook and Alibaba's early investors. Jumping out of the traditional investment model of the Tiger Fund, the investment of the Tiger Global Fund is no longer conservative, not only extending the tentacles to the first -level market in Asia, but also actively embrace Internet technology companies. Quickly wait for well -known companies. Today, Tiger Global Fund is still active in China's first -level market.

The dissolution of the Tiger Fund does not mean that Robertson is really over. No. 47, No. 47, Building 101, New York Park Avenue, still lights up for the people. The heirs who belonged to the king of the jungle came out of the fish after the tiger fund dissolved, and everyone called them- "Little Tiger".

Of course, there are many controversial things on Robertson. Based on the self -confidence of their own research and data, Robertson hated the word "analyzing the market". "The market is the collection of some companies' stocks. Those people say that the market tells them that this and the market never tells me what."

In short, the method he adopted is also the method he has always known: how good the stock, the short -to -stock stock, and the hedge of using the goods and stocks.

Robertson always believes that he is right, whether it is short of commodity copper or the final prediction of the Internet bubble. Such adherence for a long time is also a key factor in the development and growth of the Tiger Fund. But it was his almost paranoid insistence that the king of the jungle was abandoned fiercely in the Internet era.

Today, the legendary character leaves the scene first. Only Robertson had been regarded as a classic investment concept, and the group of tigers with "tiger" marked in the world permanently.

Part of the content of this article refers to "Tiger Fund Julian Robertson"

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