It’s almost Thanksgiving, and so in that spirit this is a thread aimed at appreciation.

Found Twitter this year, and while I appreciate so many on here this will focus on one small segment who is, I believe, currently quite underappreciated in the world.

Asset managers.
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First some backstory: at the beginning of this year I was more or less convinced (in traditional Millennial fashion) that I was simply the bestest and that markets weren’t all that hard.

Also held some views that you all would consider hilarious, given recent discussions.
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In the midst of holding those views, I found @RealVision and it captured me. Before long most of my multitasking time (gym, cooking, etc) time was threaded alongside consuming all of the brilliance on there.

One, in particular, got me: Hari Krishnan’s work on volatility.
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So I picked up his book and read it in early February. It’s fantastic (if a little heady because the man is insanely smart) and he talked about how volatility eventually spreads everywhere, so if you see it starting to spread you can pick some up where it's still cheap.
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And so, on March 4th, I bought puts on corporate debt to protect my portfolio from potential chop.

And this saved me. Those puts did brilliantly but I will not claim to be some sort of savant - they were simply loss prevention, all said and done.
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Still - had I not encountered Hari’s (is he on twitter? can't find him...) work, the March event would have been an extremely significant setback.

And so I am very grateful.

But the story continues.
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Obviously I discovered @RaoulGMI (as we all do, in the end) and saw a video in which he was lauding the benefits of twitter.

So I came on here and tried to talk to people. Obviously, this went quite poorly at first because of newness and failure to respect twitter etiquette
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But a few kind people helped me learn.

Some in the bracingly direct manner of calling me an idiot, and others with a few DMs cluing me in to how this place works (h/t @chigrl, who I maintain is the CEO of FinTwit and should perhaps be America’s President).
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And slowly, by respecting the rules of engagement and being less of a twat, more and more interesting conversations took place.

And in these conversations, certain of my illusions began to reveal themselves as false.
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One of the more impressive was the structural dynamics of passive (by the incomparable Mike Green) and the notion that those thriving in this low-fee world (where active management has been pushed to the periphery) are Icarian ephemera - doomed both to soar and, in time, fall
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But until that fall comes, their continued levity is a source of existential frustration to asset managers.

Many exceptional asset managers have been pushed out by this, proving that not even the mighty can always escape the structural dynamics of this 4th turning.
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But even more amazing is that the strong who remain (like @profplum99 and @SantiagoAUFund) are willing to engage and talk about these issues and help tease out the landscape here, in public, on Twitter.

Now these the only types of managers I’m interested in allocating with.
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There is a type of rigor and intellectual honesty on here amongst the FinTwit crowd that is quite rare.

It’s something I’ve only seen in arenas like entrepreneurship, when the stakes are high and a respect for truth must be prized because it affects the endgame.
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And so, asset managers, my highest appreciation goes to you: the job you are doing is so difficult right now it boggles the mind.

But at least a few of us out here are very grateful for the work you do, and have the deepest respect for you sharing your time with us.
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Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention @MetreSteven who has perhaps the singularly best attitude in the business (an example to us all!) and also @Darky999 who is… you know… fine ()...

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...as well as @TeddyVallee and @EPBResearch who are smart as hell and whose research is unparalleled, and @jam_croissant who I've just found and believe I can now understand at least 30% of what that smart mofo is saying.

You are all the best.

Thank you.
<fin>

Lol, I forgot #13. Welp, here it is:

In fact, conversations on here have fundamentally changed the way I think about allocating capital, both personally and professionally.

It changed the way I view fees (in contrast to my peers), and hasmade me think that carry compression is perhaps the biggest head fake of all.