Who is barton biggs

Barton Michael Biggs was born on Nov. His paternal grandfather, Hermann M. Biggs, was the top public-health official in New York and instituted measures that stopped the spread of tuberculosis. His father, William Biggs, held positions including chief investment officer at Bank of New York from until his death in , according to his obituary in the New York Times. In Washington, the elder Biggs renegotiated defense contracts for the government during World War II and was executive committee chairman of the Brookings Institution, the public-policy research organization.

Marines, taught English at a private school and wrote short stories that publishers rejected. Bored and feeling left out of dinner-table conversation between his father and younger brother, Jeremy, who worked for a pension fund, Biggs chose his career. He enrolled in business school at New York University, graduated with distinction, and went to work as an analyst at E.

Hutton, then the most prestigious retail brokerage, in through a family connection. Hedge funds, mostly private pools of capital whose managers participate substantially in the profits from their speculation on whether asset prices will rise or fall, were in their infancy. Biggs helped start one of the first, Fairfield Partners, in In May he accepted a partnership offer from Morgan Stanley to create equity research and investment management divisions.

Clients withdrew money managed by Morgan Stanley, and Biggs in particular, in the months before equities began their plunge, he said. Biggs was voted among the top three U. Instead, the financial sector began a plunge into the worst turmoil since the Great Depression. But he was not afraid to say he was wrong or unsure. Cooperman, a former rival of Mr. He often worked on them during his daily train commute.

Barton Michael Biggs was born on Nov. He earned a degree in English from Yale in and a master of business administration from New York University in He served in the Marine Corps. He began his career at E. Hutton in and left three years later to help found Fairfield Partners, a hedge fund. He joined Morgan Stanley in as a partner — one of the first outsiders to be given such a high status there, according to Mr.

In he founded its investment management division. In addition to his son, Mr. Biggs is survived by two daughters, Gretchen G. The more you want performance and push for it, the more difficult it is to get. The more confident you are, the better you play; a relaxed, obsessive investor is best. Sometimes he suggested to his partners that they each go home, reflect as though they had nothing but cash, and come in just as they did on that Sunday before they started with a fresh portfolio and a new exposure position.

He believed that it is a great discipline to pretend that you just got the money and have to build a new brand new portfolio - unencumbered with stale positions, where the story has deteriorated and is too cheap to sell. There are unrecognized, subconscious, emotional hang-ups that block a portfolio manager from impartial, cold-blooded investment actions like selling.

The baggage what he already owns , gets in the way of excellence. There are positions one believes in but the market has not discovered them yet. There is a bias against switching, because you can be wrong twice. The investment decision-making process should be completely intellectual and rational, not emotional, because they are just pieces of paper. The stock does not know you own it.

There is no reward for being a faithful holder. It is those holds that are too cheap to see but not attractive enough to buy that make a portfolio stale and retard performance. The big flood of public money comes in after , instead of before , the fund does well. Billions of dollars poured into tech funds in and when the Nasdaq was pushing towards 5, Redemptions were heavy in and just before the Nasdaq doubled again.

The intellectual problem an investor must wrestle with is the constant barrage of noise and babble. Noise is extraneous, short-term information that is random and basically irrelevant to investment decision making. Babble is the chatter and opinions of the well-meaning, attractive talking heads who abound. Meaning presumably leads to wisdom, which should translate into performance.

Noise and babble can be very hazardous to your investment health. Membership Login My Profile Register. Equities Equities Home Stocks Quickrank. Archives Archives Videos Ask Morningstar. Site Search Membership. Archives Videos Ask Morningstar. Barton Biggs: 10 insights from one of the greatest hedge fund managers. By Larissa Fernand Larissa Fernand is Senior Editor at Morningstar. Follow her on Twitter larissafernand.

Contact Author View articles by this Author. Be a disciplined reader. All good investors have cold spells. Love art for itself, not as an investment. Identifying growth stocks is extremely difficult. Fall in love with people, children, and dogs, but not stocks. Alpha investing is a zero-sum game.

The bliss of starting fresh. Public money floods in and flows out at exactly the wrong times.