📖Julian Robertson
Risk-First Approach
Consider the downside before the upside.
Before considering how much you can make, consider how much you can lose. Risk management is not about avoiding risk entirely, but about understanding and controlling it.
🏠 Everyday Analogy
📖 Core Interpretation
Julian Robertson treats survival as the first objective. Limiting permanent capital loss, controlling leverage, and avoiding single-point failure are prerequisites for long-term compounding.
💎 Key Insight：Risk management is about understanding, not avoidance.
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❓ Why It Matters
A single large drawdown can erase years of progress. Risk control is not timidity; it is the operating system that keeps compounding alive.
🎯 How to Practice
Define downside scenarios before entry, cap position size, avoid fragile leverage, and maintain liquidity so mistakes remain survivable.
⚠️ Common Pitfalls
Equating volatility with all forms of risk
Oversized positions without an exit plan
Using leverage to compensate for uncertainty
📚 Case Studies
1
Shorting Tech Bubble High-Fliers (1999)
Robertson’s Tiger Management shorted overvalued, zero-earnings dot-com and telecom stocks at the peak of the late-1990s tech bubble.
✨ Outcome：Sustained heavy losses in 1999 as bubble extended, but positions were ultimately vindicated when the NASDAQ collapsed in 2000.
2
Refusing to Chase Momentum (2000)
Tiger stayed short expensive tech while refusing to buy soaring momentum names, maintaining valuation discipline despite client pressure.
✨ Outcome：Fund suffered redemptions and closed in 2000, yet the subsequent tech crash validated his short thesis and risk framework.
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