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by diryawish 2246 days ago
“ Spitznagel included a chart in his letter showing that a portfolio invested 96.7% in the S&P 500 and 3.3% in Universa’s fund would have been unscathed in March, a month in which the U.S. equity benchmark fell 12.4%. The same portfolio would have produced a compounded return of 11.5% a year since March of 2008 versus 7.9% for the index.”
1 comments

The time period of March 2008 to March 2020 is cherry-picked. Yes, of course, the return is going to look impressive right after a black-swan event. That's why the fund exists. But in ordinary times, you're going to lose money. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, any more than it's a bad thing to "lose" money to a term life insurance policy but never pay out because you don't die.
A previous article on them stipulated that through December 2019 they were still up vs the market.

“After the March payday, its flagship Black Swan fund has produced a mean annual return on invested capital of 76%* since the firm was created in 2008. It’s a good result, but if you were going to make the same calculation as of Dec. 31 2019, the long-term compounded return would only be marginally better than that of the S&P 500 over the same time period.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegar...