The present stock market is a reminder why FORBES grades funds separately for bull and bear market performance.
For the bull and bear market grades, funds are compared with their peers and graded on a curve from A+ to F. Stock funds must have four full cycles of performance history, starting May 1990, to be rated and included in this issue.
This magazine, for example, grades funds separately for bull- and bear-market performance; if a seemingly hotshot fund boasts of a terrific ten-year gain but gets a FORBES D or F in down markets, then it was taking big risks with customers' money and doesn't deserve any of yours.
Among its portfolio companies, the A-Grade fund has invested in Spotify, Uber, Shazam, Soundcloud, Fab and Airbnb.
The only other "investment-grade" fund in the region, he says, is 3TS, which focuses on CEE.
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, Ashton Kutcher took the stage with Guy Oseary to talk about their A-Grade fund.
Bear Stearns said there was "effectively no value" left for investors in its Enhanced Leverage Fund and "very little value" in the High-Grade Fund, which is the one the bank is bailing out.
It means that financial institutions and companies will invest a certain amount of money in exchange for equity in the A-Grade fund, valuing the existing investments and activities at $100 million.
Britney Spears is an evangelist for Path, Kutcher's A-Grade Fund -- co-founded by Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle, and Madonna's manager, Guy Oseary, has invested in an A-list of hot startups, Snoop Dog (or is it Lion nowadays?), Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga (through Atom Factory) -- they're all doing it.
But problems arise when Morningstar uses it to grade funds with records of widely varying lengths.
Cairn Capital, which specializes in the credit markets, has been looking for ways to restructure Cairn High Grade Funding I, which Barclays's investment banking unit helped set up two years ago, because liquidity in the commercial paper market started to dry up a month ago.
