Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

Comments

  • Wow that is sad. Prayers for his family and friends.
  • OMG this is horrible; really horrible. The IVA story has become so bizarre and tragic. Prayers and support for family and friends, indeed.
  • And then there's this: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9519477/Manhattan-financer-59-jumps-death-skyscraper-weeks-firm-liquidated.html

    I think we in the US have a hard time defining success in a meaningful way; and we have issues with success-over-identification.

    This is tragic.
  • edited April 2021
    I had waited patiently to buy his fund, did so, and then it closed incurring me a modest loss.

    Suicide. Just cannot believe it. Something tells me he was not all about the money. I mean you will not see Madoff committing suicide, but his son did.

    I really don't see how De Vaulx had any thing to feel ashamed off.
  • Ya, crazy. The guy seemed to have a decent reputation but also seemed very intense in every interview I ever saw him in.

    Did like his philosophy...his fund was not meant to make you rich but to keep you rich, meaning focus on what can go wrong. I've stated it here before, NO ONE should be surprised when the market is down 40-50% from here...we all kind of know things are way out of kilter, way over valued, distorted, artificial...but yet...we post like we are experts and have a handle on what we are doing...we kinda know it's all a shit show and we can't seem to escape the pull of greed.

    Dang shame, he felt the way he did, mental illness, despondency is a terrible thing. He obviously could not stand losing what he worked so hard to build.

    Prayers out to him, his family and his friends.

    Baseball Fan
  • I'm not sure why people assume "mental illness". This seems to be the "diagnosis" whenever someone commits suicide.

    I'm willing to bet my last dollar he was of sound mental health, however anyone wants to define it. Every suicide should not be an advertisement for "mental health".

    Just saying...
  • Folks often decide to suicide in less than 60 minutes. Males often pick irreversible means. Just so sad. First Eagle, IVA, Mr Evillard and Mr de Vaulx were heros to me since I started investing around the dot com bust. Value investing has not been rewarded for a long time and that has got to hurt. RIP.
  • edited April 2021
    Absolutely no disrespect intended, but perhaps "Charles de Vaulx has left us" would be more befitting than "Charles de Vaulx passed away".
  • @Old_Joe

    I made a change that is more sensitive. Thanks for the input!
  • edited May 2021
    “ … every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this.”

    - Charles Dickens

    Yes, sad indeed. Thanks for the tweak to title @TheShadow
  • Rotten news. Never owned IVA funds, but his name is legendary, eh? From only reading ABOUT his investing strategy, and not knowing him at all: was he too inflexible in terms of dealing with the Market? So he looks back at this great ride upwards, but he kept IVA out of the fun? Because valuations were too steep for his own method? A man's life (and death) should never be reduced to such snippets of imaginings. But my mind races to try to comprehend this dreadful event. Maybe he just had too much at stake. And now, it's gone. Monetarily and otherwise.
  • It is really unfortunate that value stocks have been out-of-favor for quite a while. Those value managers stick to their discipline suffer as investment dollars move to the growth funds.

    Today First Eage Global fund is managed by Matt McLennan, who is running his "all weather" portfolio quite well in this environment. Think @bee posted Mr. McLennan's WealthTrack interview several weeks ago.
  • I think it’s hard to know, absent a note left by the deceased, why a person decides to commit suicide. The video I saw online appeared to show M de Vaux on a cellphone walking around the roof of the building. To whom was he speaking, was the conversation relevant to his demise, what else was going on in his life besides his job? A member of a self-help group I belong to took his own life, but the reason behind his death had nothing to do with his membership in the group and the problem we members all shared. We had a suicide in our extended family many moons ago, yet the effects of that event marked the family and it could be said that they never did recover. I pray for strength for the members of M de Vaux’s family and friends.
  • Thanks, @BenWP.
  • This week’s Barron’s (May 3) has a very nice tribute to Charles de Vaulx.
  • Did he leave a note? If he was walking around on a rooftop, it could have been an accidental fall.
Sign In or Register to comment.