Strategies
Coattail Investing / Whale Watching
Investment approach in which retail investors mirror the trades of well-known large investors.
In coattail investing, retail investors systematically try to replicate the decisions of successful large investors. The same approach is also called "whale watching", since you are observing the moves of the market's biggest "whales".
In practice, the strategy runs on 13F filings: as soon as a star investor such as Michael Burry, David Tepper or Bill Ackman builds a new position, coattail investors often follow within hours. Key caveats: the 45-day lag means the position may already be closed; and short positions, derivative hedges and bonds are invisible — the original portfolio's true risk profile cannot be reconstructed from the 13F alone.