Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Would you let this man manage your money? Victor Niederhoffer edition!

This profile of Victor Niederhoffer in the New Yorker is pretty entertaining. Clearly, a fascinating guy who could star in an Axe Shower Gel or Dos XX commercial.

But it makes you wonder who'd be crazy enough to give this gentleman a dime to manage. He doesn't have anything resembling a minimally coherent investment strategy, placing large, exposed, short-term bets on whatever catches his fancy.

I guess they do it just to have the privilege of hanging around with him. (Not as crazy as it sounds if you have enough money).

Anyway, Niederhoffer --whose funds have blown up twice now--is a walking "famous last words" factory. He reels out three of them consecutively:

“The market was not as liquid as I anticipated,” he said. “The movements in volatility were greater than I had anticipated. We were prepared for many different contingencies, but this kind of one we were not prepared for.”