Keeping Your Options Open

Third Friday Management, LLP is the investment manager of The Third Friday Total Return Fund, L.P. (the ‘Fund’). The Fund was founded in May 2007 and follows a proprietary rules-based market neutral options strategy designed to generate strong risk-adjusted returns in all market environments. The Fund does not employ leverage and does not take a view on market direction. Excess collateral is invested in a diverse portfolio of income-generating securities.

The Fund sells at-the-money straddles on the S&P 500 Index on a 3-month rolling basis and hedges those positions with out-of-the-money puts and calls. Each straddle is hedged independently and the hedges are adjusted throughout the cycle to maximise profitability or minimise losses. At all times the Fund focuses on protecting capital and insuring
that the first two months of the sequence are fully hedged. The strategy was initially developed in the 1990s and managed in separate accounts. The Fund was started as a family partnership and offered to outside investors for the first time in 2012 when Michael Lewitt joined the General Partner. Since 2012, the Fund has grown significantly while continually working to improve its investment strategy. 

The Fund is available for US investors through a Delaware LP and non- US investors through a Cayman Islands entity. The Fund has never had a money-losing year and was slightly positive in 2008. In addition to strong and consistent nominal returns, the Fund’s risk-adjusted returns are particularly strong with low correlation to the S&P 500, a high Sharpe Ratio, Sortino Ratio and other impressive risk metrics.

A unique aspect of the Fund’s strategy is that the 3-month structure of the options means that rare losing months coincide with widening options premiums. When a losing straddle rolls off, the Fund is in a position to sell a new straddle 3 months out at a wider premium. This sets up the Fund for higher profits and rapid recovery of losses in the following months. As a result, it is very difficult for the Fund to suffer large sustained drawdowns or losses – a unique feature of the strategy that sustains strong risk-adjusted returns over long periods of time.

Michael Lewitt serves as the Chief Investment Officer of the firm and General Partner and Portfolio Manager of the Fund. Mr. Lewitt is also the editor of The Credit Strategist, a financial newsletter that is widely read around the world, and is recognized as one of the few investors to correctly predict the 2001-2 credit crisis and 2008 financial crisis. He is the author of two well-regarded investment books, The Death of Capital (2010) and The Committee to Destroy the World (2016). Mr. Lewitt is a long-time critic of the mainstream financial media and consensus policymaking thinking and uses his writing as an integral part of his investment process to formulate independent views that have produced top tier performance for his clients over the last 25 years.

Company: Third Friday Fund Management
Name: Michael E. Lewitt
Email: [email protected]
Web Address: www.thirdfriday.com
Address: 515 N Flagler Drive, Suite 300, West Palm Beach, FL 33401