Saturday, November 22, 2014

Other People's 13F's Are Useless

Young Money, "Eliminate white noise from the financial media":

The information in 13F filings is very limited: the disclosures are made with a lag, they presents a partial picture (e.g. they don't state if an investment is part of a pair trade), and they don't give the filer's rationale for making an investment.
The only noteworthy 13Fs from 9/30/14 that I heard about were some fascinating impending train wrecks to gawk at, like the guy who put his entire fund in one iron ore miner.

I guess the other thing I'd point out is that 13Fs are how we are able to have holders lists for companies, which are useful. It's reassuring when you're short a company with bonds yielding 40%, and you can check and see that nobody really smart owns it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I guess the other thing I'd point out is that 13Fs are how we are able to have holders lists for companies, which are useful.

That's a good point and TBH something I hadn't considered.

whydibuy said...

The problem is that much of what is reported is actually old news. They don't get reported until way after the quarter and by then, ownership can have changed quite a lot.
I would also add that funds that sold out don't report any more so you really don't know when they exited the position or at what price. They're just gone.