any other funds similar to Renaissance Tech?

[Tim Smith]

Wow, ignore a significant piece of the world's wealth because it's too much hassle? Must be nice. You'd think you could hire a bunch of experts who could pretty easily take care of that kind of thing for you and just pass the cost on to the Yanks. They've got whole professions for that kind of thing, they call them lawyers and accountants.

I've got two things to say to that :

1. This is not just a case of a bit of extra paperwork (like the US W8-BEN forms), the paperwork and rules associated with US money are far more complicated AND as I mentioned, if one little part of the rules is missed by accident, then there are archaeic penalties in place for the financial firms (e.g. 30% withholding of ALL payments originating from the US to "non-compliant" the financial institution)
   
2. As a result of (1) above, despite "lawyers and accountants", you would find that the vast majority of Americans wishing to trade off-shore would not be willing to pay extra just to be able to comply with their country's own self-imposed bureaucracy.

Of course if you have millions or billions, or you are a large company and are going to be bringing in ongoing fee revenue (i.e. not just depositing cash in a bank or fund) then sure, you'll find people in Europe willing to help. But your average American is simply not going to be worth all the hassle.

@Sig. With all due respect, blaming the Europeans for an unwillingness to deal with archaeic US legislation is the wrong thing. I suggest US politicians should be the target of your anger.

 

[Sig]

I've got two things to say to that :

1. This is not just a case of a bit of extra paperwork (like the US W8-BEN forms), the paperwork and rules associated with US money are far more complicated AND as I mentioned, if one little part of the rules is missed by accident, then there are archaeic penalties in place for the financial firms.
2. As a result of (1) above, despite "lawyers and accountants", you would find that the vast majority of Americans wishing to trade off-shore would not be willing to pay extra just to be able to comply with their country's own self-imposed bureaucracy.

Of course if you have millions or billions, or you are a large company and are going to be bringing in ongoing fee revenue (i.e. not just depositing cash in a bank or fund) then sure, you'll find people in Europe willing to help.

@Sig. With all due respect, blaming the Europeans for an unwillingness to deal with archaeic US legislation is the wrong thing. I suggest US politicians should be the target of your anger.

I'm not blaming anyone. I agree that the rules are archaic and it's entirely the fault of the U.S. government. I've also learned that you don't make money by assigning blame, it's really rather pointless. In fact I've made most of my money shielding customers from complex, bureaucratic, archaic systems in the little niche of the world my company operates in.

I find it incredible that a money manager would pass up a significant portion of the market simply because there were complex rules and paperwork. I mean seriously, ever looked at the tax obligations and paperwork an international corporation has to comply with and the penalties for mistakes? And yet they all manage to get along just fine. That said, I see an opportunity here to offer that as a nice neat package to overseas funds, is there really no-one doing that now?

 

[Tim Smith]

Trust me, I know money managers who have had to tell their US clients to "go home".... and yes, its not something they want to tell a good and loyal customer to do, especially when you've often become friends with clients who've been with you for many years. Its even more difficult when you've got a wife/husband situation, and the husband is OK, but the wife is a US citizen.

I think there probably is an opportunity, and I wouldn't be surprised if there probably are a few niche firms doing it.

Coming back to the original fund mentioned above, I think there may be a bit of further complexity with it being based in Luxembourg. One of those traditional centres of financial privacy and hence you may find a particularly strong reluctance there to be shipping information off to the US.

 

[931]

On average the fund returned +48% per year. In 2016 it returned +56,50 net of fees.

Non-random movements is the key word.

How high was drawdown at those years?
Are the Non-random movements on weekly/monthly scale or intraday?