Overview
Thrasher Funds is an investment services firm that deals with how money, music, fashion, and culture intersect with the stock market. We specialize in educating, preparing and offering money management services to a new generation of investors.
 
www.beathrasher.com
 
Money is in.  It’s the longest running trend in the world.  The fad that just won’t die.  But for the generation that is supposed to be ahead of every curve, there’s one that they are severely behind on: making and saving money. Rappers and Rock Stars taunt them all with it in their videos by throwing it at the screen, only to have it cascade down to the ground— “Making it Rain”, as it were.  But music videos only let Next Investors™ know what to do with the wads of cash once they get it, not how to get it.

Never before in history have youth possessed so much financial potential.  From young professionals and entrepreneurs to entertainers and athletes, this generation earns on average, significantly more than most of their parents’ generation earned at the same time in their lives. While this next generation of investors wield this unprecedented financial strength daily in the retail marketplace, most of them have all but ignored and been ignored by the financial services industry when it comes to their potential within the financial markets.  This is all unfortunate because the younger they start, the more they are able to leverage their most valuable asset: Time. 

Conversely, commercials from financial behemoths implore the Baby Boomers to start planning and saving for their retirements, and/or their children’s college tuition.  Now, that’s fine if you’re over 40 with children.  But what if you’re not.  What if you’re a child of the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s?  What should you be planning for?  While the parents of this youngest generation of adults are being wooed by financial institutions to grow their assets, the younger generations are being marketed to in quite a different way, to spend like there’s no tomorrow.

After speaking with scores of young, would-be investors, there are two main impediments to young people’s involvement in the equity markets: not enough money and not enough knowledge.  Thrasher Funds has addressed both of these issues with its launch of The GendeX Mutual Fund and Thrasher Multimedia in late 2007.  The GendeX Fund allows a minimum initial investment of $100 with a minimum monthly automatic investment of at least $50 while providing investors with a diversified portfolio of domestic and foreign companies, many of which have benefited greatly from this target generation. 

Thrasher Multimedia produces web-based financial education videos through its ThrasherTV franchise.  ThrasherTV distills oft times complex investing concepts into discrete and understandable information while infusing cultural and lifestyle references and distributes the products over the internet via YouTube, MySpace, BeAThrasher.com, and other web syndicated outlets.

Strategy
For all its equity portfolios, Thrasher seeks to invest in the industries, sectors, and specific companies that are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the Demographic Convergence Thesis (DCT). This proprietary model seeks to capitalize on the convergence of what the firm believes to be global, generational, and socioeconomic dynamics that touch an array of industries: the Baby Boomer's increased life expectancy, elongated career life cycle, along with Generations X and Y’s increased access to capital. There have been a plethora of articles that talk about the ageless-ness of baby boomers and the fiscal habits of the the next generation of adults. But few have examined the market implications of these demographic and lifestyle shifts.

Investments in the GendeX Fund are not limited by industry, sector, or market capitalization and is not a retail fund. The firm utilizes both fundamental and technical analysis in generating its portfolio. The Gendex Fund’s performance is benchmarked against the S&P 500 Index, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Russell 2000 Index.

The firm was founded in 2005.