Photo: thrasherfunds.com
In our lives, there have been many things that, in their early stages, we felt instinctively, absolutely certain the culture would not embrace. Ha! We said to ourselves smugly. There’s no way people will like Garden State /drink Sparks/wear skinny jeans/elect Bush/use e-mail. As if! Clearly, we are fools. Which is why we’re not going to chuckle knowingly about what a laughingstock-waiting-to-happen Thrasher Funds, a mutual-fund management company “by young adult investors for young adult investors” specifically targeting the American Apparel generation, is. Thrasher makes investments primarily in the retail sector; they have holdings in the dread AA, H&M, and Uniqlo, and also in Google and Volkswagen. Their Website sports many pictures of hot twentysomethings languishing in expensive jeans and says Thrasher follows the Democratic Convergence Thesis, which postulates “that there are specific companies and industries that are taking advantage of the convergence between Generation X and Y’s newfound spending power and trend setting and the Baby Boomers’ desire to stay young forever and use their spending power to emulate the trends of the younger generations.” This of course makes our skin crawl. And combined with the designy-ness and the lack of self-awareness and, God, the name, we already have an extreme case of generational embarrassment, one that may or may not be manifesting itself in a full-body rash right now. But then again, that’s how we felt about Garden State! In the end, Thrasher’s strategies are simply explained, you can start with $100, and they have cool fonts. Our prediction: It’s a hit! Let’s see if our odds hold. In the meantime, we’re going to go take some Benadryl.
