Andy Redleaf, founder of Whitebox Advisors, explains how structural market changes and the loss of Wall Street dealer desks eliminated natural market arbitrageurs.
Opinion
Andy Redleaf: Warren Buffett is an above-average investor, but an elite borrower
“And I've always thought that Warren Buffett is not a great investor. He's a, he's an above average good investor. He's good on the asset side. He's the world record holder. He's the absolute best borrower in the world. And had sort of a unique model, and that'…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Redleaf: Commission deregulation forced Wall Street to trade against customers
“In fact, the established firms moved from commission business to trading businesses, trading against their customers, really. The prop desks became established. And then subsequently, as volume exploded, as, in fact, commission business could work. The prop tr…”
Opinion
Andy Redleaf: Stock index futures only enabled destructive home day trading
“From an investment, from an, you know, investor point of view, there was absolutely no use for the product. It enabled pajama boys, you know, people to trade at home the market on a, you know, 10 minute, five minute, 10 minute hourly basis, which, you know, is…”
Opinion
Redleaf: Originate-to-distribute and misaligned incentives did not cause the 2008 crisis
“People and regulators and so forth talk about the originating to distribute as the problem of the financial crisis. I think that that's completely wrong. It's not the case that incentives were misaligned. I mean, all of Lehman's employees Had the bulk of their…”
Insight
Andy Redleaf: Outperforming an index mathematically requires leverage, concentration, or turnover
“Returns above an index have to, mathematically, they have, the possible sources are leverage, concentration, or turnover.”
Opinion
Redleaf: Black-box funds rarely have proprietary secrets too complex or valuable to reveal
“And the thing about a Black, the Black Box, I always thought the Black Box firms, you're telling people, That either our system is so complicated, so detailed, so computationally intense, or what have you, that there's no point in opening it up, because it jus…”