As traffic increases, hopefully in the coming months I can win over more people with continued positive fund results, in a thus far very tough market environment since launch last August.
As always, you can see how I am doing by verified independent 3rd party metric here: 'Rising Tide Growth' performance
To future investors, as always, if you change your mind and want to rescind an investment pledge and/or change (up or down) the amount, please let me know since I simply want know where I stand in this process. Also if you see your name below but no location, please drop me an email or comment on this blog entry of your city, state. Thanks.
The original post on the purpose of the blog can be found here [Jan 7: Readers 'Pledges' Towards Mutual Fund Launch]
Totals
January 7, 2008 = $75K total raised
February 19, 2008 (click here for full post): $766K total raised
March 18, 2008 (click here for full post): $994K raised
April 16, 2008: $1.190M raised
Important info since I get this question a lot via email:
One question asked is the process once the fund is up and running - it would be no different than any other mutual fund out there - you'd get an application, prospectus, send the check to a 3rd party clearing house and away you go. Retirement and normal accounts both available, it is no load, etc - nothing different than all the other mutual funds out there, other than the most transparency in terms of manager decisions and daily feedback. So that's down the road once the fund is created - for now I just need a clear amount of commitments/pledges so I can hit the ground running.
| Amount | Who | Where |
| $75,000 | Self | MI |
| $2,500 | Michael D | Oceanside, CA |
| $7,500 | Oth | Parts Unknown |
| $10,000 | Dean D | San Jose, CA |
| $2,500 | Oza P | MA |
| $20,000 | Oren L | Chicago |
| $10,000 | Rob T | NYC |
| $5,000 | Ryan | Seattle, WA |
| $7,500 | Ted | Sunnyvale, CA |
| $2,500 | Brian P | Cerritos, CA |
| $22,500 | David B | Middlesex, NJ |
| $50,000 | Ian | San Antonio, TX |
| $40,000 | "LiquidWindows" | Deep in heart of TX |
| $5,000 | Jonson | LA, CA |
| $5,000 | Jimidean | Parts Unknown |
| $3,000 | Brooks R | Baton Rouge, LA |
| $5,000 | Zlatanscores | Parts Unknown |
| $3,000 | Ben S | Portland, OR |
| $5,000 | Sheng S | Omaha, NE |
| $10,000 | msuberri | NJ |
| $5,000 | David W | Houston, TX |
| $10,000 | Ryan T | NJ |
| $3,000 | NandaK | Nashua, NH |
| $10,000 | WaltF | Parts Unknown (via email) |
| $2,500 | Joe | Scranton, PA (email) |
| $2,500 | Todd | Nashville, TN (email) |
| $250,000 | David R | South Carolina (email) |
| $100,000 | A.F. | Los Altos, CA (email) |
| $50,000 | Satya | Parts Uknown (email) |
| $5,000 | Bobby L | San Jose, CA |
| $200,000 | Ganesh S | Bellevue, WA |
| $2,500 | Michael A | Charleston, SC (email) |
| $2,500 | TJP | Sterling, IL (email) |
| $37,500 | Bob B | VanBuren, AR (email) |
| $10,000 | Pat L | Tuscon, AZ (email) |
| $10,000 | Art H | Auburn, CA (email) |
| $5,000 | Dan D | Augusta, GA (email) |
| $5,000 | Jeffrey H | Greensboro, NC (email) |
| $50,000 | Tom L | San Fran, CA (email) |
| $10,000 | Wesley W | San Jose, CA (email) |
| $10,000 | Tom S (daKat) | Minneapolis, MN |
| $5,000 | Dan W | Mentor, OH (email) |
| $10,000 | Jim G | Marana, AZ (email) |
| $5,000 | Andrey G | Baltimore, MD |
| $20,000 | Doug M | San Fran, CA (email) |
| $75,000 | "Skooker" | Boise, ID (email) |
| $3,750 | Brian C | Milwaukee, WI (email) |
| $1,190,250 |
11 comments:
What's your expense ratio?
BD,
probably going to need to start higher and then move down as assets grow. Probably somewhere in mid 1s to begin, then drift down from there with growth >$50M or so.
I'll also have to see what my true yearly overhead is after a year - what the "advice" is versus what the reality is might be very different. Frankly I've been surprised to see most domestic funds still in the 1-1.30 range - its sort of an outrage in the big shops that have 50-75+ funds - they have so much money to spread their overhead over yet still take a big % (other than Vanguard and a few other funds) Harder for smaller shops with say 2-5 funds, but even some of them have lower fees than the big boys.
For you, it would be 3% though.
Mark: A lot of times in your comments you speak of NYC v. main street. When you look at your list, you have 1 NYC listing. As I said before, the door is locked and the key has been thrown away. But with persistance it will come down!!
You can bump my committment up to 20K
Curious why you decided to open a mutual fund vs hedge fund? Mutual fund regulations are so restrictive. You can accept small investors into a mutual fund, thats a plus, but really, how many investors with $5K each do you really want to have? Think about all the customer service you'll need to take care of...
Hi, sign me up for your fund,
3k,
Mac,
Bellevue,WA
@Guy, my comments are directed to the ivory tower folks not the normal people in NYC. In fact I think with the high cost of living there they have it very tough. I did get a 2nd NYC via email last night, but yes it is ironic 20% of my US readership is from NYC/NJ but only 2 commitments :) Must be a lot of investment managers looking for ideas ;)
@shaxmatist,
I'd like to do a hedge fund someday as well - long-short equity; there have been great shorts that we have not been able to take advantage of since August. Further the hedge fund is far cheaper, far easier to start, and just so much easier. But the same problem exists for both structures - need to attract investors. And in hedge fund world your investors need to be very well off people with certain net worth and annual incomes. So it's hard enough just to attract normal everyday people. If you don't have a certain pedigree, with a certain i-bank background, people just don't want to give you a chance. Because as we all know, credentials mean everything ;) I just read 76 hedge funds are already out of business YTD. Granted that is out of 1000s, but hey they were all "great pedigrees".
As for customer service and all that, that will all be 3rd party - hence my expenses will be higher since I won't be doing that. All I plan to do is manage and then when assets grow large enough I'd like to hire some analysts who are in same shoes as I, people who are relatively bright, passionate and would never get a chance with the way it is set up now where most people are frozen out of the process. But thats the only employees I'd "hire", all back office stuff will be 3rd partied.
3%?!! After I gave you that big DAL tip?!! Unbelieveable. LoL.
I pledge $10K - may increase as I learn more details (expenses, etc.)
thanks, if you wouldn't mind city/state please.
Expenses probably will start in the 1.5-1.7% annual fee range until assets grow to a high enough level to lower them. No 12b-1 (marketing) No front load (yuck) or anything like that. Thanks.
BD? I think you typed
Trap is spelled T-R-A-P, not T-I-P. Thanks for the trap on DAL!
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