I think this post sounds great and I don’t see any issues with the content.
I still wanted to flag briefly that in personal conversation, a few members of the community have voiced some worries about this project and the team to me, so I’d recommend investigating these further before investing large amounts. These worries might be partly or fully out of date, and may not be substantiated upon further investigation, but I thought given the nature of the project and what’s at stake for other organizations/individuals, it may be worth mentioning.
Hi Jonas, thanks for mentioning this, I was not aware this was happening. Unfortunately, no one has reached out to me, so I cannot comment on any potential concerns or address any rumors floating around about the project. I welcome anyone getting in touch with me to evaluate the effectiveness of the overall idea (enhancing community financial returns) and my specific implementation of this idea, since that is much more useful to me and the overall community than circulating possibly incorrect information. My email is brendon@antigravityinvestments.com. As a related note, I believe making it easier to evaluate the EV of EA initiatives such as this one can provide significant value to the community, and this is part of a project I am personally working on at the moment.
It is very likely most concerns are “partly or fully out of date” as you mention, likely stemming from when I talked with a lot of EAs in finance about my very first investment related project idea in 2016, at which time I had a weak background in finance. Within the last year, this project has received positive evaluations from EA Grants, other funders in the community, and EAs in finance, and I have not received any negative feedback or heard of any concerns.
Speaking as an individual who follows finance projects with interest, I’m assuming that “no one has reached out to me” refers to something like no-one reaching out after this particular post, rather than no-one having flagged significant bugs with Antigravity Investments in the past?
It is very likely most concerns are “partly or fully out of date” as you mention, likely stemming from when I talked with a lot of EAs in finance about my very first investment related project idea in 2016
I would have expected the majority of perceptions to be shaped by the public launch and marketing of Antigravity in 2017, rather than individual discussions in 2016? It seems possible that the 2017 perceptions are nonetheless out of date. However, the following claim still stood out as very surprising to me:
Within the last year, this project has received positive evaluations from… EAs in finance, and I have not received any negative feedback
Until the end of 2017, I worked as a trader, ran the London EA & finance community, and talked with financial markets people around the world. My understanding is that most traders and money managers think that a money-management project usually needs staff with previous trading experience to be viable. (I agree that this heuristic should carry a lot of weight.) Antigravity, of course, is attempting to substantially shortcut this heuristic, by launching an investment firm without any staff with previous trading experience. I am therefore very surprised by the above claim. The heuristic leads me to expect that EAs in finance will be typically negative on such a project, but the above suggests that they are consistently positive.
“No one has reached out to me” refers to not hearing “significant bugs” in evaluations within the last year (2018) on my current plan for Antigravity Investments. My current plan differs considerably from previous plans that were run past EAs. There currently has been no overlap between people that have evaluated previous versions of the plan versus the current version of the plan, although I am interested in having there be more overlap.
Previous feedback primarily involved (1) focusing on passive investment approaches instead of active approaches, (2) focusing on donating appreciated securities, and (3) questioning the need for EA-specific investment services. Regarding point 1, I revised the plan to incorporate offering passive investment approaches, and think that such approaches are great for DIY investors and taxable investment accounts. Regarding point 2, I think donating appreciated securities is a great idea, if we were currently managing taxable accounts, I would utilize that approach. Regarding point 3, the data points I have indicate that EA organizations are currently not investing or investing suboptimally, and that staff do not have experience with nonprofit asset management. I think external providers either would not be incentivized to provide certain types of recommendations or would provide services that are fairly suboptimal and/or high fee. I am currently focused on serving EA organizations. Regarding serving individual EAs, I think that skilled DIY investing with the donation of appreciated securities is pretty optimal and doesn’t require Antigravity Investments if someone can and wants to do it themselves. Managed alternatives like, say, most robo-advisors are less optimal and may not support asset donation.
Antigravity Investments does not do trading or money-management in the sense of actively managing portfolios. Looking at our actual progress and work output (incorporating, becoming SEC-registered, managing EA capital, and using non-controversial evidence-based investing practices) my opinion is that I’ve managed to make it work despite launching the project without experience (I’m now an SEC-registered investment advisor and have experience managing portfolios).
I’ve reached out to see if you’d like to reevaluate the current plan.
Antigravity Investments does not do trading or money-management in the sense of actively managing portfolios.
My heuristic applies to money-management in the sense of managing money, or, more precisely, having control of others’ investments. I agree that the strength of the heuristic varies by project, but I think it applies pretty broadly.
Relatedly, you may wish to update your website. You currently advertise Long-Term Active Investing as one of three services.
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Thanks for noting why one might override the heuristic I mentioned. Congratulations on setting up a legal entity and registering with the SEC. However, my impression is that the qualifications required to register are pretty basic. e.g. it took me <2 weeks of preparation to pass 3 regulatory exams in the UK when I started working in finance. I already believe you to be smart, and of course Antigravity isn’t fraudulent, so passing the low hurdles the SEC requires doesn’t seem like much of an update. You might want to be careful with using this as evidence: non-finance people might not understand what it means.
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Thanks for clarifying your previous statements. Given the private nature of 2017 discussions, I probably can’t comment on your representation of previous feedback.
Thank you, also, for the offer to spend more time on Antigravity. As mentioned by chat, I’m going to focus on other things. If you believe your comparative advantage to be money-management, my recommendation would be to work at a top firm for a couple of years, focusing first on learning all the best practices and tacit knowledge and second on building respect in the industry, then to consider starting your own firm. As an aside, I would be more excited about this as an earning to give strategy than as an EA-specific company, though I think the advice applies similarly either way.
I agree with your heuristic in the sense that prior experience increases the probability of success, but not in the sense that it’s necessary for success.
“Long-Term Active Investing” refers to systematic asset allocation approaches designed by experts that are active in the sense of more frequent trading rather than human decision making.
My main point was to emphasize that because Antigravity Investments is already operating and producing real world outcomes, those operations and outcomes should have majority weight in evaluating this project. I agree that FINRA licensing exams are fundamental competency tests rather than measures of skill, and should be weighted accordingly. In talking with evaluators of this project, I speak almost exclusively about actual impact and progress rather than FINRA licensing or prior experience I had before starting Antigravity Investments.
Information about our actual impact and progress is currently not public knowledge. We’re on course to drive tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to effective charities in 2019, and I think this can be increased substantially since the scope of our operations is very limited. I think this project can drive more to charity than E2G in my near-term future, which is why I’ve prioritized this project above earning to give.
I just wanted to point out that I am looking for a robo-advisor and having talked with WealthSimple, they wrote back the following:
“we do support the option to gift securities without selling the asset. There is a short form via docusign we’ll send you anytime you’d like to take advantage of this option.”
Thanks! WealthSimple’s support for the donation of appreciated securities is not listed online, so this is very useful information for EAs to have as they evaluate investment options. Do they explicitly support this in the United States, and do they impose any restrictions on asset donations?
I reached out to WealthSimple. Their response was:
“We do indeed support the donation of specific assets to a charity of this choice. To my knowledge, we do not have limitations regarding the amount or charities accepted.
This feature is fairly manual. It requires a number of forms to be signed and is not fully supported in-product. However, we can definitely still process a request like this.”
This is great to hear. WealthSimple’s 0.5% annual fee is twice as high as Betterment’s and WealthFront’s. A DIY approach of investing in separate ETFs for asset classes and donating them when appreciated and selling them to harvest losses when depreciated would be more optimal, but WealthSimple looks like a functional choice for people that want to donate a lot of assets.
The Betterment page on donating stock (https://www.betterment.com/donating-stock/) now does not appear to limit the selection of charities. As such, Betterment appears to be a better choice for an EA that wants a managed investment option and wants to donate substantial amounts to registered charities because Betterment makes donating assets very easy within their user interface, has a low fee, and is well established.
I think this post sounds great and I don’t see any issues with the content.
I still wanted to flag briefly that in personal conversation, a few members of the community have voiced some worries about this project and the team to me, so I’d recommend investigating these further before investing large amounts. These worries might be partly or fully out of date, and may not be substantiated upon further investigation, but I thought given the nature of the project and what’s at stake for other organizations/individuals, it may be worth mentioning.
(Personal opinion, not my employer’s.)
Hi Jonas, thanks for mentioning this, I was not aware this was happening. Unfortunately, no one has reached out to me, so I cannot comment on any potential concerns or address any rumors floating around about the project. I welcome anyone getting in touch with me to evaluate the effectiveness of the overall idea (enhancing community financial returns) and my specific implementation of this idea, since that is much more useful to me and the overall community than circulating possibly incorrect information. My email is brendon@antigravityinvestments.com. As a related note, I believe making it easier to evaluate the EV of EA initiatives such as this one can provide significant value to the community, and this is part of a project I am personally working on at the moment.
It is very likely most concerns are “partly or fully out of date” as you mention, likely stemming from when I talked with a lot of EAs in finance about my very first investment related project idea in 2016, at which time I had a weak background in finance. Within the last year, this project has received positive evaluations from EA Grants, other funders in the community, and EAs in finance, and I have not received any negative feedback or heard of any concerns.
Speaking as an individual who follows finance projects with interest, I’m assuming that “no one has reached out to me” refers to something like no-one reaching out after this particular post, rather than no-one having flagged significant bugs with Antigravity Investments in the past?
I would have expected the majority of perceptions to be shaped by the public launch and marketing of Antigravity in 2017, rather than individual discussions in 2016? It seems possible that the 2017 perceptions are nonetheless out of date. However, the following claim still stood out as very surprising to me:
Until the end of 2017, I worked as a trader, ran the London EA & finance community, and talked with financial markets people around the world. My understanding is that most traders and money managers think that a money-management project usually needs staff with previous trading experience to be viable. (I agree that this heuristic should carry a lot of weight.) Antigravity, of course, is attempting to substantially shortcut this heuristic, by launching an investment firm without any staff with previous trading experience. I am therefore very surprised by the above claim. The heuristic leads me to expect that EAs in finance will be typically negative on such a project, but the above suggests that they are consistently positive.
“No one has reached out to me” refers to not hearing “significant bugs” in evaluations within the last year (2018) on my current plan for Antigravity Investments. My current plan differs considerably from previous plans that were run past EAs. There currently has been no overlap between people that have evaluated previous versions of the plan versus the current version of the plan, although I am interested in having there be more overlap.
Previous feedback primarily involved (1) focusing on passive investment approaches instead of active approaches, (2) focusing on donating appreciated securities, and (3) questioning the need for EA-specific investment services. Regarding point 1, I revised the plan to incorporate offering passive investment approaches, and think that such approaches are great for DIY investors and taxable investment accounts. Regarding point 2, I think donating appreciated securities is a great idea, if we were currently managing taxable accounts, I would utilize that approach. Regarding point 3, the data points I have indicate that EA organizations are currently not investing or investing suboptimally, and that staff do not have experience with nonprofit asset management. I think external providers either would not be incentivized to provide certain types of recommendations or would provide services that are fairly suboptimal and/or high fee. I am currently focused on serving EA organizations. Regarding serving individual EAs, I think that skilled DIY investing with the donation of appreciated securities is pretty optimal and doesn’t require Antigravity Investments if someone can and wants to do it themselves. Managed alternatives like, say, most robo-advisors are less optimal and may not support asset donation.
Antigravity Investments does not do trading or money-management in the sense of actively managing portfolios. Looking at our actual progress and work output (incorporating, becoming SEC-registered, managing EA capital, and using non-controversial evidence-based investing practices) my opinion is that I’ve managed to make it work despite launching the project without experience (I’m now an SEC-registered investment advisor and have experience managing portfolios).
I’ve reached out to see if you’d like to reevaluate the current plan.
My heuristic applies to money-management in the sense of managing money, or, more precisely, having control of others’ investments. I agree that the strength of the heuristic varies by project, but I think it applies pretty broadly.
Relatedly, you may wish to update your website. You currently advertise Long-Term Active Investing as one of three services.
-----
Thanks for noting why one might override the heuristic I mentioned. Congratulations on setting up a legal entity and registering with the SEC. However, my impression is that the qualifications required to register are pretty basic. e.g. it took me <2 weeks of preparation to pass 3 regulatory exams in the UK when I started working in finance. I already believe you to be smart, and of course Antigravity isn’t fraudulent, so passing the low hurdles the SEC requires doesn’t seem like much of an update. You might want to be careful with using this as evidence: non-finance people might not understand what it means.
-----
Thanks for clarifying your previous statements. Given the private nature of 2017 discussions, I probably can’t comment on your representation of previous feedback.
Thank you, also, for the offer to spend more time on Antigravity. As mentioned by chat, I’m going to focus on other things. If you believe your comparative advantage to be money-management, my recommendation would be to work at a top firm for a couple of years, focusing first on learning all the best practices and tacit knowledge and second on building respect in the industry, then to consider starting your own firm. As an aside, I would be more excited about this as an earning to give strategy than as an EA-specific company, though I think the advice applies similarly either way.
I agree with your heuristic in the sense that prior experience increases the probability of success, but not in the sense that it’s necessary for success.
“Long-Term Active Investing” refers to systematic asset allocation approaches designed by experts that are active in the sense of more frequent trading rather than human decision making.
My main point was to emphasize that because Antigravity Investments is already operating and producing real world outcomes, those operations and outcomes should have majority weight in evaluating this project. I agree that FINRA licensing exams are fundamental competency tests rather than measures of skill, and should be weighted accordingly. In talking with evaluators of this project, I speak almost exclusively about actual impact and progress rather than FINRA licensing or prior experience I had before starting Antigravity Investments.
Information about our actual impact and progress is currently not public knowledge. We’re on course to drive tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to effective charities in 2019, and I think this can be increased substantially since the scope of our operations is very limited. I think this project can drive more to charity than E2G in my near-term future, which is why I’ve prioritized this project above earning to give.
Brendon,
First of all great article.
I just wanted to point out that I am looking for a robo-advisor and having talked with WealthSimple, they wrote back the following:
“we do support the option to gift securities without selling the asset. There is a short form via docusign we’ll send you anytime you’d like to take advantage of this option.”
Thanks! WealthSimple’s support for the donation of appreciated securities is not listed online, so this is very useful information for EAs to have as they evaluate investment options. Do they explicitly support this in the United States, and do they impose any restrictions on asset donations?
I reached out to WealthSimple. Their response was:
“We do indeed support the donation of specific assets to a charity of this choice. To my knowledge, we do not have limitations regarding the amount or charities accepted.
This feature is fairly manual. It requires a number of forms to be signed and is not fully supported in-product. However, we can definitely still process a request like this.”
This is great to hear. WealthSimple’s 0.5% annual fee is twice as high as Betterment’s and WealthFront’s. A DIY approach of investing in separate ETFs for asset classes and donating them when appreciated and selling them to harvest losses when depreciated would be more optimal, but WealthSimple looks like a functional choice for people that want to donate a lot of assets.
The Betterment page on donating stock (https://www.betterment.com/donating-stock/) now does not appear to limit the selection of charities. As such, Betterment appears to be a better choice for an EA that wants a managed investment option and wants to donate substantial amounts to registered charities because Betterment makes donating assets very easy within their user interface, has a low fee, and is well established.