The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 19 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Fisher (2020): At 5% interest rates, every real estate investor goes bankrupt
“No, not a chance. They go to five to six percent. Every real estate investor that we know is bankrupt. They're not hanging on. They're broke and dead. And every home builder in America has no customers. That's a fact.”
Fisher: Central bank volatility suppression has made anti-correlation hedges rare
“Central banks, in their zeal to destroy volatility, they've created so much correlation that it's really hard to find anti-correlation is kind of a way to think about it.”
Fisher: Buy-side firms avoid hiring juniors because training wastes time
“All of us look at this now that I'm in this seat is yeah, let them go work at like one of these bolts bracket firms. Let them train these people for us. And then we'll take them, right? Like, we don't want to train any of these people. Like, that's a waste of …”
Fisher: Committed real estate funds distort alignment and dull creativity
“I think it's not that great for the sponsor. It's great in the sense that you get a huge amount of capital in our management, you get all these asset management fees and all this other stuff, but I think it makes you do stupid things. The alignment's all off, …”
Fisher: Extreme risk management parameters reduce hedge fund industry returns
“I think it's still a worthy debate for the entire industry to have as to whether or not the drive into these extreme risk management parameters is a good thing. I believe it causes everyone's returns to go down, but I think that's a choice.”
Fisher: Discretionary macro managers should shift toward trade-specific sidecars
“Frankly, except for very few traders in our industry, I think it's kind of where macro people should try to turn to. I mean, I have a strong view that discretionary people Should really push deeper that direction, not shrink away from it.”
Fisher: Macro funds cannot achieve a 1.0 Sharpe ratio
“So that sort of coquates to like a .75 sharp, which is probably as good as one can hope and macro. I mean, everyone wants to do a one, but nobody will get there.”
Fisher: Market timing alpha has declined and may be negative
“Your excess returns are going to come through Timing, asset allocation, and then leverage. Timing's the hardest. It's what hedge funds basically are asked generally to do, and I think we can all agree with the number of managers that exist today, and then they…”
Fisher: Real estate investors bet 80% on the asset and 20% on the person
“To some degree, the person is betting on the asset, probably the way most people look at it, myself included, because I've been on the other side of these conversations as an investor, not as a sponsor, is you're betting maybe 80% on the asset and 20% on the p…”
Fisher: Rezoning creates huge value because institutional investors despise the risk
“Buying something that's zoned for X and rezoning it for Y creates enormous value. And nobody likes to do it, by the way, and even to this day, people hate it. The large institutional investors despise that risk. There's nothing that gets them excited about tha…”
Fisher: An investment argument is stronger the harder it is to invert
“My core principle as an investor is the harder it is, To invert your argument, the more powerful your argument is.”
Fisher: Thematic real estate strengthens underlying assumptions rather than lowering return targets
“What I would say about thematic investing is it doesn't really change the numbers. You know what I mean? Meaning like, it's not like you're shooting for a lower IRR or a lower anything. It's just that it's harder to invert the arguments surrounding your assump…”
Fisher: Mean reversion trading is emotionally harder than trend following
“Mean reversion in trading is very, very hard. It also is hard because when you're doing trend trading or you're doing breakout trading, it's clear where the break is. If it goes back below the break, just stop out and you're done. It's emotionally pretty easy.…”
Fisher: Macro investing lacks traditional Graham-Dodd value anchors
“Macro is probably the one trading style or investing style that generally doesn't have a very good value anchor, at least as it relates to sort of Business school, one-on-one Graham Dodd value style investing.”
Fisher: Interest rates are the Rosetta Stone of global macro investing
“And the Rosetta Stone of macro investing is interest rates. It is the Rosetta Stone. It is the security or set of securities that really radiates out to every other security in the world.”
Fisher: Admitting you lack trade ideas is better than forcing them
“Just saying I don't have a good idea is arguably more important than saying you have a good idea. I think one of the problems in our industry, particularly in macro, is there's this just need, this almost driving need To constantly have a good idea.”
Fisher: Exploit rare, repeatable human errors with aggressive leverage
“That's where I am as Commonwealth is I got to find trades where machines can't intervene. And where I can find persistency of an essence human error. And I would say to you that the number of them are small. And that's why I've asked my investors to say, look,…”
Fisher: Violently eject envious and negative people from your life
“Make sure you surround yourself with those, the type of people that I'm talking about and work violently almost to eject the people who don't fall into that category. And unfortunately, people are very good at hiding that from you. So work aggressively to figu…”
Fisher: Commonwealth focuses thematic real estate on data centers and sound stages
“The one we chose was investing in data centers and we continue to invest in that. And then the other one, which we've most more recently kind of tripped into is sound stages for content production. And so those two share in many ways, a lot of similarities and…”