Last One Standing
Sep 2026
A friend of mine recently competed in a brutal ultramarathon called the Backyard Ultra. We thought it was a fitting parallel for what we are trying to achieve with the Stega Quantedge Fund.
In a Backyard Ultra race, runners complete a 6.7km loop every hour.
There is no finish line. You simply keep going until only one runner remains and is crowned the winner.
Our Backyard Ultra
As the first institutional investor in Quantedge in 2011, we have taken a similar no-finish-line approach.
Since inception, Quantedge has grown roughly 40x, to more than US$7 billion in assets today. At that scale, capacity eventually becomes a constraint. Should Quantedge reach capacity, new investors may no longer be accepted and, ultimately, capital from existing investors may also need to be returned.
This is where being early matters.
By virtue of being the first and betting big on Quantedge, we hold some of the largest and oldest shares in the fund, with seriously dusty serial numbers.
When Quantedge eventually has to say goodbye to investors, capital may be returned on a LIFO (last-in-first-out) basis. If so, more recent investors would be redeemed first, while older investors could potentially remain invested longer.
Many Last Laps
Those additional laps may sound insignificant. Yet, they aren't.
Taking a leaf from the past, Quantedge has doubled every 3 to 5 years on average. Every additional lap therefore matters. More time in the fund can mean another doubling of capital.
That is the difference between simply being invested… and staying invested long enough to be the Last One Standing. For those who are curious, the Backyard Ultra race did not have a winner this year. My friend was one of the final three runners standing, and they decided to cross the line, arm in arm, together.
Perhaps that is the best parallel of all. With Quantedge, we hope to still be running well into the race when the closing bell finally rings.
Best regards,
Stega Investment Team
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