market folly

Julian Robertson recently sat down and gave us a peek inside his portfolio and mind. If you're unfamiliar with Robertson, he is a legendary hedge fund manager who ran Tiger Management. We cover many of his 'Tiger Cubs' on the blog: Fund managers who learned under Robertson at Tiger and then eventually started their own funds. We've covered Julian's portfolio and thoughts on the blog before. In his latest interview, he is decisively bearish on both the US and world markets. He thinks we have not solved the current problems and it could get worse. He likened the U.S.'s current situation to that of Japan in 1989, but thinks we are in worse shape.

In terms of his portfolio, Robertson is still long Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA), citing their lack of credit risk as part of his fondness for them. He has sold all of his Goldman Sachs (GS) and no other financials interest him except for MA and V (even though they technically aren't a 'financial' in the traditional sense). He is also buying puts on longer-term treasuries, as he thinks that rates will rise within 5 years or so. Robertson had said that he thinks rates could very easily hit 7% and that they could go as high as 18%. The easiest way to put on such a trade for retail investors in equity markets would be to buy puts on TLT, the 20 year treasury bond ETF. Overall, this echoes his thoughts and portfolio disclosures that he has talked about in his previous interview, as well as at a 'Tiger Cub' hedge fund panel, where hedge fund managers with ties to Tiger presented investment theses.