It is "insane" to blame quants for recent stock market woes, at least in the eyes of a liquid alts giant who had a rough 2018 and is "sick of people" blaming quants "without a theory for why."

Clifford Scott Asness AQR Capital Management Managing and Founding Principal

That's one tidbit that Cliff Asness, co-founder of AQR [profile] ($226 billion in AUM and counting), shared in a recent interview with the Financial Times. Fundsters struggling with how to talk (to clients, prospects, employees, and the general public) about the recent volatility may want to dig deeper into the article, as Asness opens up about AQR's performance troubles.

"We've done lousily, and I'm not blaming others," Asness tells the FT. "It's felt crappy ... It's felt significantly crappy."

Asness notes that last year was AQR's third-worst, performance-wise, since the firm was founded in 1998.

"It's been surprisingly painful, but not as painful as in our first year ... That was devastating," Asness says. "We have faced similar, if not worse, periods before, and we still believe in our results." 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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