
Honestly, it's fine. Just relax. I know what I'm doing here. I bounce back from 86% losses all the time.
I’m not asking for myself, I’m asking for Ebullio Capital Management, and its founder, Lars Steffensen. In February the commodities fund took a 86 percent hit, after declining 70 percent in January, and YTD, is down 96 percent. Investors are forming a disorderly line for the exits. From the outside in, things look ass-bleedingly bad. But it’s cool! Lars is not stressing. People come back from this sort of thing all the time, Lars included.
“Extraordinary circumstances” forced the fund “to liquidate and/or cancel parts of the physical book and liquidate some long-held speculative positions, mainly in LME non-ferrous metals,” Ebullio founder Lars Steffensen wrote in the report, referring to the London Metal Exchange.
“We took the hit,” Steffensen, 42, said by phone today, confirming the contents of the letter and declining to elaborate. “I’ve always bounced back,” he said.
The fund is waiving its 2 percent management fee for 2010.
So, anyway, like I said, I’m polling the group so we can give Lars an accurate picture of whether or not this is feasible. Do bounce backs like this happen all the time? Looking for hard data and/or total guesstimates.
Ebullio Hedge Fund Fell 86% Last Month on Metals Loss [Bloomberg via BI]

WOW
Completely fucked
Those losses are from their inability to deliver physical, which they never really had in the first place, but they are actually GS traders who meant for this to happen because it helped out the rest of their book, and makes it easier to push through their political agenda against ferrous metals who are acutally the root cause of all evils and Geithner Obama’s work horrible evil banksters.
-Tyler
bessy – I believe the tag should be “nothing is fk’d.” also, where is the reference to a$$ bleeding? are you getting soft on us?
@cluzo- where is the reference to ass bleeding? you mean the one in the 4th sentence? (“Investors are forming an disorderly line for the exits. From the outside in, things look ass-bleedingly bad.”) and then again in the tags? (“Extraordinary circumstances caused blood to literally gush from our asses- seriously duck for cover”)
@1 not completely.
- Lars
0 value added and 10x leverage go wooowoo. 14% of the time it works every time.
@bess – ok, looks like nothing is fk’d here…carry on.
Hi everyone, its me again, Chaz!
A friend-a-mine is a hedge fund manager. He had an 80% loss. I put all-a-my money wit him, and even dough I’m down 80%, he told me he would gain 80% dis year, and den I’d be even!
I did da math, and it worked out! I’m lettin’ it ride! So yeah, Beth, its easy to recover from dese huge losses.
Best,
The Thug
Hi Bess!
stuff like this happens all the time. it’s no big deal.
Do what I always do – ditch the HWM start a new fund. There’s a sucker born every minute!
-JWM
This guy is a hack
-J Cassano
That my friends, is a bald bald man. Bald. B A L D.
-John Rocker
I’m going to sue the bejeezuz out of that bald bastard.
Ruth Madoff
…give me back that fillet-o-fish…
…give me that fish…..
Even when I use an alias I still lose money
- Jeff Mackie
@cluzo/tax chick having a bad day today?
i bounced back…thanks to murdoch.
damn ars.
cg
i bounced back…thanks to murdoch.
damn ars.
cg
Is that Porker Stansberry?
I love this guy, so positive despite the overwhelming indications of complete failure, you go Lars!
Lars should lube up his head, shove it far up Ashley Dupre’s cavernous vagina, then take her legs and spin her around like a wind mill.
-guy who thinks about things
Recovery is easy. Just pick the right 5 numbers between 1 and 65 and get the Powerball correct. Bingo! Back in the game.
@22:
Wouldn’t it be more like a helicopter, unless Lars’ head was pointed down at a 90 degree angle?
- Guy who visualizes things
Detective Frank Wrench?
An animated history of Ebullio Capital Management:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M17aG_Po2Y
@24 – Yeah, you’re right. Anyway, that is what he should do.
-22
@22 and @24, more like a gyro copter?
NEVER AGAIN!
So, you are all saying that his head resembles a phallus?
@11- John, I think you and Lars should sit down and talk. Maybe even invite him over to your fund. He looks like “JWM material.”
@28: I got a message saying I’m posting too fast, so I will respond to your question at a later time. Thank you for your patience in this matter.
regal returns
dude ONLY needs to be up 2400% to hit breakeven
It gets better…the guy had a small discrepancy in January numbers…
“Ebullio Capital Management LLP said its commodity hedge fund fell almost 70 percent in January, not the 1.1 percent decline originally reported to investors,letters to investors show.
The 1.1 percent drop was announced in the January notice
and changed to 69.65 percent in the February report, the
documents show. The fund, based in Southend-on-Sea, England,
fell another 86 percent last month, taking its plunge in the
first two months to 96 percent. The biggest losses were in
copper, nickel and tin, according to the February letter.
“The moment we knew the actual January loss, we brought
that up to our investors immediately,” Lars Steffensen, the
founder of the company, said today by phone. He declined to
comment on the size of the discrepancy.”
pfluger anagram: fuld
Since no one else has done this, a little lesson in the asymetry of returns. In order to get back to even, Lars the man from Mars will need to generate a 2500% return. The reason for this is that the lower remaining capital base, the higher the PERCENTAGE one needs to recoup the losses. For example, lets say Larsy boy tons it and makes 100% in the last three quarters. An existing investor will how have his 4% remainder double to 8%, but thus would still be down a not immaterial 92% for the year.
@8. If you follow the my math, you still have 312.5% to go. Sorry.
@31 Our strict recruiting process requires prospective employees to have blown up at least two funds and have lost no less than $100MM of their personal net worth, before we can consider them for candidacy.
-JWM
@37 actually, @34 did it.
i liked this guy better when he was the lead singer of Aqua
@36- I know Dick Fuld, and Pfluger is no Dick Fuld
@37 no, we’re talking about just the *original* 86%. Duh.
-another former Lehman quant.
PS don’t feel bad, it’s like the Monty Hall problem, counter-intuitive for most people.
Its costs about $50K to launch a fund; and if you keep it to 1-2 people; and do a FoF and reinvest all the cash with a top tier fund or two, you can beak even on $20M of AUM; and actually make like $500K for matching th SP500, which after tax is better than slaving at some BB where your risk weighted comp (ie, making zero for 2+ yrs) over 5-7 years is much less.
I wouldn’t mind his bald lubed up head being inside of me.
-Dennis Kneale
@37, so there is still hope then?
@25
of the hit tv show “wrenched”? does kinda look like him…i’ll give you bonus points for obscurity…
@46 Maybe I can get a wrench to strip my nuts
@36: Is that you, Chaz? Where’s the “d” in pfluger? And what about the other letters?
@41: And Pfluger is no Fuld, either.
@37: Now, as far as the math goes, I’m sticking with Chaz’ numbers. If you sustain an 80% loss in one year, you will break even by earning 80% the following year. Its simple arithmetic. I have a CFA.
What you left out in your mathematical wizardry is the variable representing sarcasm.
Gryrocopter.
@28:
Gyno-copter.
BALDANUS!
I love how traders defend such results: “But look at all the money he made the year before!!”
That’s like saying a pilot who flies a jet into the ground and survives it is a good pilot because “look at all the successful landings he made the year before!!”
Santelli: “Thanks, Sharon, well as I look around he room I see “malaise” and no one is telling me I am wrong. How does a one-armed man count his change? With “tea” and it’s time for a party. Who among us cares what the spreads are?? If your country goes down like John Edwards with an hour to kill, who’s gonna know? Are we out of the woods, Tiger? Yeah, you, Liesman are a tiger for sure with you yikes stripes, Bechnut’s got em way to chew up a good financial report! And you with the lazy left eye: What have you ever done in a pit full of “Wolfmen” and guys who scream out in the last bastion of free enterprise?? Sure, sure the Tea Party people have tough times spelling the simplest of derogatory words but hey thats America, a nation of those who can spell “moron” with the second “o” and who pay most of the taxes paid in this country which are high like Kudlow in the old days. Back to you Becky.
86? That’s what they call me down at Elaine’s.
-Charles “I Don’t Need No Fuckin’ Spotter” Gasparino
I would definitely gyro-copter B. Quick and her not so lazy brown eye.
@34, @37
Guys, how did you get 2,400-2,500%?
I got 4%:
$1000 initial
96% hit
$1000*100/96 = 100*96/$1000 = $9.6 left
now we use annuity formula: $9.6*(1+return rate needed) = $1000 -> (1+return rate needed) = 104%
return rate needed = 4%
-AIG Quant
January: ‘Tis but a scratch!
February: I’ve had worse.
March: All right, we’ll waive the management fee
I am a headge fund manager. What is “ass bleeding”?
@58 +1
@54 Nice!
~A fan
@54 Nice!
~A fan
@22 & @24 + @44 – what does sex have to do with this article? you are sex addicts. Face it.
@47 +1 Well done
Bounce back? Take the balance of the money, fly to Vegas and place it all on #28. Easy.
If you’re gonna blow up, blow up big. Like Rock Star big.
-D. Trump
@57
oops – sorry I made an error in my calculation above, I was too busy counting my ERP money I got paid yesterday….sorry!
- AIG Quant
why would anyone waste time giving money to clowns like these? you’d probably do better by just gambling in a casino.
ebullio [lat]: to produce in abundance
ebullio [lat]: to produce in abundance
definitely only hit post comment once
@8
Ermm, lets say you have 100 bux, the fund looses 80%. You’d be left with 20 bux. If next year your friend makes 80% you’d only have 36 bux left (from your original 100). Not sure how you can invest when you cant figure out basic math…
@57 No wonder AIG is such a piece of shit…
1 000 * (1 – 0.96) * (1 + 24) = 1 000
48- thank you.
37- you’re a dope.
48- thank you.
37- you’re a dope.
People like 72 & 73 is what the subprime is in trouble.
@76 Truth.
Tags go into the Bess Hall of Fame.
72 & 73 are so dumb, it is frightening. Hopefully, they are unemployed.
the guy tried to corner the TIN market, that was a bad idea
the guy tried to corner the TIN market, that was a bad idea
the guy tried to corner the TIN market, that was a bad idea
72&73: Congrats, you pass 3rd grade arithmetic! Unfortunately, you could not handle the leap in brain power it took to realize @8 & @57 were joking.
It would be a public service if Bess told us what firms 72 & 73 work at. I want to make sure they are not managing any of my money.
@82
This blog is mostly read by IB wannabes, so lacking in the 3rd grade arithmetic is not something I’d put past them…
@83 actually this blog is ready mostly by people who actually works at investment banks and hedge funds (read the wsj? then you’d know that includes little known guys like Jamie Dimon and Ken Griffin). In sum: kill yourself.
@85 Oh please, every other day the comment section has a frat dbag fight about which private east coast highschool is better. The largest portion of the readership is first/second year BBAs daydreaming about bottles and models.