How Adam Wyden Continues to Win Big Over the Years Part 4: The Pandemic Years

The COVID-19 pandemic was a black-swan event that few, if anyone saw coming. While the markets plummeted in the first quarter, they ended the year up meaningfully. Adam Wyden's ADW Capital significantly outperformed the markets in 2020, posting triple-digit returns. In 2021, Wyden posted a respectable return but underperformed the S&P 500 significantly.

Let's take a look at his letters from 2020 and 2021 to get an idea of how he did it.

Note: This is part four of an in-depth series on Adam Wyden's letters going back to 2014. Click here for part one on his strategy. Click here for part two on the bear market of 2015-2016. Click here for part three on a challenging 2018, and click here for part five on the bear market of 2022.

The first quarter of 2020 marked ADW Capital's 37^th quarter since inception. As a reminder, the fund operates a long-term strategy designed to minimize correlation to the broader indexes, focusing instead on avoiding permanent capital loss. Like all others, ADW's strategy sometimes underperforms the markets.

In Q1 2020, ADW Capital lost 15.91% but still did better than the S&P 500's return of -19.6%, the Russell 2000's 30.61% loss, and the Russell 2000 Value's -35.66% return.