"ZIRP Was a Personality and I Miss Her"
Dear Limited Partners,
She is gone. The Zero Interest Rate Phenomenon — ZIRP, to those of us who loved her — left us this year, and she took our entire investment strategy with her. Rates went up. So did our blood pressure. So did, for the first time, the cost of being wrong.
For a decade, free money was not just our edge; it was our personality. We were bold because money was free. We were visionary because capital had no cost. When money became expensive, we discovered, to our horror, that we had no other ideas. We were simply a leveraged bet on her staying forever.
The markups from last year's framed letter have, regrettably, reversed. The frame remains on the wall as a cautionary tale, now captioned with a single sticky note that says "lol."
We are adjusting. By "adjusting" I mean grieving. We will love again, but we will never love like we loved ZIRP.
Bereaved,
Chadwick "Chad" Burnsworth III
Managing Partner