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 24 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Solomon: Passive investors drastically underperform active managers on a dollar-weighted basis
“And so when you look at, if you just do a an adjustment for the performance and passive product, just take the S and P and look at when people entered and exited as a proxy, or look at volumes as a proxy for when people entered and exited, they actually haven'…”
Solomon: Many ETFs Carry Major Liquidity Mismatches With Underlying Assets
“There are, in many ETFs, significant mismatches between the liquidity that the ETF promises and the underlying liquidity of the instruments.”
Solomon: Underlying market liquidity across all asset classes has never been worse
“So we've been in the most low volatility environment in my time ever investing, and liquidity in the underlying markets has also never been worse across all asset classes.”
Solomon: Index volatility will spike massively when passive investors de-risk
“We will see index vol a spike at some point in my life. I'm a hundred percent sure. And when it does, we don't quite yet know how that, how far that will go, because we just don't know how deep people are going to de-risk. And when they do, they're going to se…”
Solomon: Ramius returned its multi-strategy fund because consistent returns became impossible
“We've returned all the money in our multi-strategy fund because living up to that ideal was impossible at the end.”
Solomon: Empathy is the number one priority for a manager
“I think the number one thing you need to think about as a manager is empathy.”
Solomon: Active Management Will Not Disappear
“One, active management isn't going away. So I think there will always be a portion of the market that wants to outperform and is willing to pay for the option around outperformance. So I think that's going to still be here.”
Solomon: A manager's hardest task is foreseeing peripheral risks
“The hardest thing to do as a manager is to have peripheral vision and understand how something at the periphery might impact something in the middle of your vision.”
Solomon: Markets underestimate the impact of contagion during financial crises
“The contagion issue is probably more impactful in times of stress than Then people give it credit for. Now that's, and that's the same story in 2008 was a giant contagion trade.”
Solomon: Total active management assets are at an all-time high
“Active management today, there's more assets in active management today than there ever has been. So it's not that active management has gotten smaller. It's just gotten smaller as a percentage of the overall market.”
Solomon: Long-only closet indexers will get killed over fee structures
“But if you're a long only manager in your closet indexing, you're going to get killed. You know, just, you can't possibly justify your fee structure.”
Solomon: Promoting top Wall Street producers to managers fails because skills differ
“But if you look at the history of Wall Street firms, you know, the tendency is to promote Producers into management positions, and there's a very big disconnect between great producers and great managers. Turns out management is a somewhat different skill set.”
Solomon: Machines Cannot Replace Trust in Financial Services
“I do business with people I inherently think have my back, and I'm willing to pay them more than I probably should, but trust is a real value and a real commodity that you cannot replace by a machine or anything else, and so whatever we're going to be doing at…”
Treating a mass shooter reflects a universal belief in human life
“They're just people who help and who look beyond the immediacy of the situation because they believe in the sanctity of human life. And that's not a Jewish thing. That's a human thing.”
Solomon: Launching hedge funds is much harder today than in past eras
“Although I think it's much harder for people to launch funds today than it was, you know, in the salad days.”
Solomon: Avoiding leverage lets investors survive stress and stay in trades
“We've never really been a big user of leverage. So we definitely lived through periods of stress and pricing, but we've recognized that as long as you're not leveraged and forced out of the trade at an inopportune time, you can last a long time.”
Solomon: Your early workplace likes and dislikes will remain with you forever
“Because chances are, the things that you like and don't like about the places where you are things that are going to be with you for the rest of your life.”
Tree of Life will be remembered historically alongside Columbine and Charleston
“Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill, Tree of Life, like, that's gonna be known as one of those places that I read about and heard about my entire life. You know, it's gonna be like Columbine, or Charleston, or Krakow, or Munich, or Moscow. Or Kiev.”
Fred Rogers lived three blocks from the Tree of Life Synagogue
“Mr. Rogers lived in a house that was no more than three blocks away from tree of life synagogue. Five minute walk. If you're walking slowly.”
Pittsburgh natives experience distinct Pittsburgh and Jewish diasporas
“I often tell people, when you're from Pittsburgh, there are two diasporas. There's the Pittsburgh diaspora, And then there's the Jewish diaspora.”
Cowen CEO Jeff Solomon declines political debates to focus on grieving
“I've told people I'm not gonna get into the debate. It's not for us at this point, at least not for me. You know, I have my own views, but it's not time to share them. It's really a time for the next period to get through grieving and help other people who get…”
3,000 people attended the funeral for victims Cecil and David Rosenthal
“And when I was at their funeral yesterday, and there were 3000 people there”
Solomon: Hedge funds evolved from 1980s Wall Street prop desk spinouts
“If you think about the way the hedge fund business evolved, it evolved from people who were on the prop desks, you know, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, you know, all these different places in the eighties, and they spun out and started their own firms Largely…”
Solomon: Downtime Is Essential Intellectual Nourishment, Not Wasted Time
“I used to think that was a waste of time. If I'm not doing something, I'm wasting time. And the reality is, like, watching a TV show and vegging, there's something really relaxing about that. Sitting up back and smoking a cigar and thinking, Forty-year-old me …”