The alpha bull of the bitcoin herd… Don’t be taken in by this wealth-stealing conspiracy… Join Teeka Tiwari’s live crypto event tonight… In the mailbag: “It could get real wild”…
After surging 3,281% last year, the cryptocurrency market is down by about 63% so far in 2018.
But world-renowned crypto investing expert Teeka Tiwari isn’t fazed by the dramatic price swings.
As he’s been telling his readers all year… the next leg-up in the crypto market will happen as more deep-pocketed institutional investors start to get involved.
And now, news has broken that one of the stars of the institutional firmament is doing just that.
He’s been running Yale’s $29 billion endowment fund since 1985.
The endowment supports one-third of Yale’s total operations – including the financial aid it gives to gifted students.
Swensen can’t afford to suffer big losses. At the same time, he’s tasked with growing Yale’s capital by putting it to work in the markets. And by definition, he can’t do that without taking on calculated risks.
That’s where the “Warren Buffett of Yale” nickname comes from. Like Buffett, Swensen has a long-term track record of making uncanny gains for the endowment.
Over the past two decades, the fund has returned 12.1% a year. That compares with the average annual gain of 7.5% for U.S. stocks and 5.2% for U.S. bonds.
And it’s close to double the estimated 7.3% average annual return of college and university endowments overall.
These kinds of returns have allowed Swensen to grow the endowment from roughly $1 billion to $29 billion over his 33 years as head of the fund.
He didn’t achieve this stellar run doing what everyone else was doing.
The so-called “Yale Model” he developed bucked the trend among endowment managers.
For instance, Swensen doesn’t believe in owning bonds and other asset classes that have low expected returns – even though it’s standard portfolio theory to always adds bonds to a portfolio for their diversification benefits.
And he was the first endowment manager to start heavily investing in “alternative assets” such as private equity funds and timber. (A private equity fund invests in companies that are still in private hands instead of publicly-traded stocks.)
About two-thirds of the Yale endowment is in alternative assets, rather than the more traditional mix of stocks and bonds.
He’s plopping 1% of the Yale endowment – or $290 million – into two funds that invest in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
The first is a $300 million crypto venture fund – called a16z – launched by software engineer and venture capital investor Marc Andreessen.
Andreessen is another investment legend. In 1993, he built the first widely used web browser, Mosaic (later renamed Netscape Navigator).
He was also an early investor in some of the most successful Big Tech firms – including Facebook, Twitter, and Airbnb.
And just like he did in the early days of the internet, his aim at a16z is to back the big winners of the blockchain revolution.
The second fund Yale is investing in is the $400 million Paradigm crypto hedge fund. It’s the blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused fund launched by Fred Ehrsam – one of the founders of the popular Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange.
Billionaire crypto fund manager Mike Novogratz broke the news of Swensen’s move into cryptos with the following tweet…
This is really big news. David Swensen is the most influential investor in the world. By making this investment, he just said that bitcoin is a store of value. He’s the alpha bull of the herd.
And Novogratz isn’t the only professional crypto investor taking note. Ari Paul is the chief investment officer at BlockTower Capital, another leading crypto investment fund.
He says it will mark the end of the crypto bear market, as other deep-pocketed investing pros follow Swensen’s lead. Paul…
We’re in a bear market until new buyers are enticed. Even a small dollar amount is legitimizing. If that happens, every family office says, “Oh, Yale’s in. That gives us the excuse.”
If you don’t know him already, Teeka was the first guy in our industry to recommend cryptocurrencies to readers.
He added bitcoin to the model portfolio at our Palm Beach Confidential advisory in April 2016. And even after this year’s market drop, it’s up 1,444%.
Since that first recommendation, Teeka has added another 44 crypto plays to the model portfolio.
The average gain for these picks is 424%. And the top performer is up 14,443% (enough to turn every $100 grubstake into almost $14,900).
Teeka believes this is just the start of a multiyear bull run for cryptos. But as he’s been telling his readers, there’s a “great crypto conspiracy” afoot in 2018 to steal that crypto wealth.
You see, individual investors – ordinary folks, in other words – are selling out of their positions at bargain basement prices… right as “smart money” institutional investors pile in. As Teeka told readers back in July…
All year long, we’ve been under assault by rumors of central bank collusion against cryptos. Threats of bans. Endless investigations… and the ceaseless drumbeat of negativity from the traditional press.
And yet – amid this shower of negative news – careful observers will have noticed institutions are actually running into crypto investments.
Guess what? It’s working. Institutions are getting the best prices on cryptos since mid-2017. As the average investor is panic-selling, big investors are buying.
When valuable assets go on sale in bear markets, there’s always a handover of wealth from individuals to institutions. Teeka again…
I saw this happen after the housing crisis in 2010 to 2012. Institutions started buying up foreclosures by the thousands. Individual investors couldn’t get even get a mortgage.
I saw it in 2003 after the dot-com crash. Institutions were snapping up internet and technology stocks on the cheap. But on CNBC they kept telling the public it was too early to buy.
I saw it during 1994 and 1995. Institutions scoffed outwardly about how “dumb” it was to be buying internet stocks. Then they turned around and bought, as individuals were selling.
We don’t want you to become the next victim of this time-honored strategy.
The key to avoiding getting fleeced like this is to focus on what institutions are doing… not on what they’re saying.
And right now, they’re buying.
For a deeper dive into the institutional moves into crypto… and what it means for the market… make sure to catch up on “The Great Cryptocurrency Conspiracy of 2018” tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
In this rebroadcast of Teeka’s live crypto event, you’ll hear more from him about what’s behind this year’s fall in the crypto market… when the trend will reverse… and his top three crypto plays to profit from the coming boom.
Tonight’s event is free to join. To register your email address and tune in at 8 p.m. ET, click here.
It’s funny! The latest Bill Bonner Letter email [paid-up Bill Bonner Letter subscribers can catch up here] is all about how bad Facebook is. Now folks are spouting about Steemit. C’mon! They are all just investments. They come. They go. I have held Steem Power for a couple of years, and don’t intend on selling until whatever is going to replace Steemit comes along in 15 or 20 years.
– Rick B.
I am surprised by the number of elites still in favor of Trump. It seems no one can understand that his style of bull dog negotiating is ripe for unintended consequences. The fact that our legislators cannot even begin to understand that drives me nuts. Iran and the Strait are just one of those unintended (or are they intended after all?) results. His Mexico-Canada deal is a sleeper with even more funny lobbyist deals in it. His bromance with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un does not raise any red flags. Simple fact checking shows he continues to be a liar.
So to answer your question, am I getting ready for higher oil prices? NO. But when the bullets start flying and the non-thinking public wakes up to the unintended consequences and starts to think for themselves, it could get real wild and dangerous. Democracy is five wolves and a sheep deciding on lunch. He who votes, decides nothing. He who counts the votes, decides everything. We get what we deserve, not what we want, always.
– Bernie B.
It’s not surprising Bill’s article about West Baltimore triggered Google, the self-appointed guardians of “hate crime” (along with Facebook, Twitter, and other Big Techs). Reading it, I couldn’t help laughing at the in-your-face honesty of Bill’s writing. That Big Pharma kills like illegal drugs – ouch, the truth hurts. That welfare breeds idleness and poverty – how dare you. That a married couple is better at raising a family than a single parent – oh no, that’s so unfair.
And Bill made sure he didn’t miss any other targets, like the minimum wage, food stamps, and bad public schools, to underline the reality that government is the problem masquerading as the solution. How leftists and big government types must have foamed at the mouth reading this! I’m surprised they haven’t “disappeared” Bill Bonner into the digital gulag of censorship. For the rest of us, keep hammering on the truth, Bill.
– Jeremy S.
Are you investing in cryptos when they’re selling at steep discounts… or do you think the whole sector is a bunch of phooey? Write us at feedback@legacyresearch.com.
Regards,
Chris Lowe
October 10, 2018
Delray Beach, Florida
P.S. Just a week from today, Teeka and the rest of the Legacy Research team will be traveling to Bermuda for the first Legacy Investment Summit.
Teeka will be talking about the flood of institutional money into cryptos… and why it’s about to send the market higher.
Don’t worry if you can’t join us in Bermuda. We’ll be sharing the whole event with Legacy readers via our livestream. To find out how to access it, read on here.