Apple’s Run Isn’t Over – AAPL (WallStreetPit)
Former Legg Mason Chairman and Chief Investment Officer Bill Miller believes Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares will go higher. With the ticker of the tech giant trading above the $600 level for the first time since October 2012, Miller thinks its run isn’t over. “It is not as attractive as it once was, but I still think it’s worth $700, $750,” he told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” Tuesday. Miller, the current chairman and CIO of LLM, also talked about his views on the market, noting he’s still bullish and stands by his statement last month that “after this correction you can throw a dart at the market and about anything you hit is gonna go up the next six months.”
Hedge fund growth crushed in choppy markets (CNBC)
It was meant to be the year of the hedge fund. After near indiscriminate gains for shares in 2013, the choppier markets of this year were hailed as the perfect conditions for the specialist and skilled active fund manager. It has not turned out that way. While equity markets in the developed world have gyrated, many of the world’s most acclaimed stock pickers have underperformed. At the same time, the hedge funds that specialise in predicting the direction of the global economy have struggled as winning trades in interest rates and currency markets have gone into reverse.
Hedge fund returns disappoint in April amid worse start since 2008 (BizJournals)
The global hedge fund industry suffered through another sour month in April, posting its worst start to the year since 2008. Overall returns for the industry were -0.15 percent in April, following returns of -0.17 in March and first quarter returns of 1.23 percent for the first quarter, according to British financial research firm Preqin. Event-driven strategies were top performers in April, posting 0.60 percent returns. Long/short strategies performed worst with -0.42 percent returns.
Barclays Healthcare Expert Readies Hedge Fund (Finalternatives)
A former Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE:BCS) analyst is set to launch an emerging-markets healthcare hedge fund next month. Jason Mann’s Hong Kong-based Fenex Capital Management has been seeded by Stempar Sciences Chairman Hoyoung Huh, Reuters reports, and features former Hong Kong Alternative Investment Management Association Chairman Christophe Lee as an adviser. It is unclear how much Fenex will manage at inception. Mann was a Greater China healthcare equity research analyst at Barclays until last year.
Buffett’s Buying This Telecom — And It Looks Set To Pop (Nasdaq)
The major telecommunication stocks always seem to be in focus in one way or another. When not involved in mergers or acquisitions, or being roiled by lawsuits or federal regulations, they are often the focus of dividend-seeking investors. Last week, we found out that Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.B), Paulson & Co. and Third Point added positions in Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) when the hedge funds revealed their latest quarterly regulatory filings. This information is obviously on a time lag, but the media and public pay attention nonetheless…
Israeli hedge funds rise 33 percent in two years (StLJewishLight)
The value of assets managed by Israeli hedge funds has grown by one-third since 2012. According to survey data collected by the hedge fund administrator Tzur Management, Israeli hedge funds managed $2.7 billion in assets in 2014. Thirty new hedge funds were opened in 2013, according to a news release. The Tzur Capital Management Index of Israeli Hedge Funds also found that Israeli hedge funds performed better than the global hedge fund average in both 2012 and 2013, when Israeli hedge funds reported returns of 13 and 17 percent, respectively. The majority of the funds’ total assets are invested outside Israel.
Billionaire hedge funder doubles down on climate fight (CNBC)
Mesirow’s Klopfenstein Plans Hedge Fund (Finalternatives)
A senior Mesirow Financial Holdings executive and currency trader is leaving the firm to found his own hedge fund. Gary Klopfenstein plans to launch a small boutique to manage currency assets and other alternative investments, Crain’s Chicago Business reports. He will leave Mesirow, where he is senior managing director of currency management, in July. “Going forward, I will focus on partnering with a very limited number of sophisticated global institutions to provide unique solutions to the management of currency and other alternative investments as well as pursuing various business development initiatives,” Klopfenstein wrote to clients of his planned GK Investment Management.
Banned hedge fund manager Micalizzi arrested in Italy: prosecutors (Reuters)
Alberto Micalizzi, a former university professor and ex-hedge fund manager who was fined £3 million ($5.1 million) in 2012 for concealing massive losses to investors, has been arrested in Italy, Milan prosecutors said on Wednesday [May 21]. In a statement, prosecutors said they had also issued arrest warrants for 14 associates of Micalizzi, some of whom are already in jail. They did not give further details. A legal source told Reuters Micalizzi was arrested as part of an investigation into a €600 million ($821.73 million) fraud that has allegedly damaged a range of companies including gas operator Snam, Pirelli, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM), UBI Banca and UBS AG (ADR) (NYSE:UBS).
Hedge Funds Won’t Make You Rich (BloombergView)
The recent release of Institutional Investor Alpha’s hedge-fund survey has everyone asking how the fund managers continue to make so much money. Academics and journalists alike point out that hedge funds, as a class, haven’t delivered above-market after-fee returns for quite some time. Hedge funds, of course, get paid whether the market goes up or down, so the real question is why hedge funds continue to receive large inflows of capital from pension funds and other investors. The New Yorker magazine’s John Cassidy has as good roundup of the most prominent theories. He includes some good links to research on the question of whether hedge funds deliver superior risk-adjusted returns, or offer significant diversification potential.
The hedge fund job you didn’t know you wanted that you probably can’t get (eFinancialCareers)
Earlier this month, Bloomberg published a fascinating article on three extremely low-profile hedge fund partners who, unbeknownst to the world, had given away $13 billion to charitable causes from the fortune they’ve so quietly amassed. They run a small quant fund you’ve likely never heard – and they’re hiring. TGS Management, which operates in small, non-descript office buildings in Princeton, New Jersey and Irvine, California, launched more than 25 years ago as one of the first quantitative investing firms. The partners – Andrew Shechtel, C. Frederick Taylor and now-retired David Gelbaum – were so successful in the early stages of building the company that they required minimal outside investment, hence the lack of name recognition, of which they have no want.
Good Guys: Renée Haugerud Narrows the Gender Gap One Trader at a Time (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
After working as a trader for years and then starting and running her own hedge fund firm, Renée Haugerud kept running into two problems when trying to hire people: There was a lack of female traders, and new hires fresh from college didn’t have the skills she needed. To remedy both of these issues, Haugerud, founder and chief investment officer of New York–based Galtere, along with her husband, John Murphy, started the Galtere Institute: Finance for the Future Initiative at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2009. (Murphy is an alumnus.) The couple seeded the institute with $1.5 million; it offers access to a Bloomberg trading lab and classes, and hosts an annual Behavioral Finance Symposium.
Hedge fund 400 Capital gains on RMBS bets, makes new hires (Reuters)
Hedge fund 400 Capital returned 3.26 percent during the first three months of 2014, beating its benchmarks as bets on residential mortgage backed securities paid off. The firm, founded five years ago and run by Chris Hentemann, told clients in its first quarter letter seen by Reuters, “The overweighting to RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities) drove absolute returns for the fund in 1Q14.” The fund’s gains beat the HFRI fund weighted composite index’ 1.1 percent return as well as the Barclay’s U.S. Aggregate return of 1.84 percent. Last year the fund returned 15.23 percent and its average annual return is 20.43 percent.
A Hedge-Funder Is Selling Brooklyn’s Priciest Home For $32 Million (BusinessInsider)
A condo penthouse in Brooklyn Heights just went on the market for a whopping $32 million, the highest asking price ever in Brooklyn. The sellers are Stuart Leaf, founder of Cadogan Management hedge fund, and his wife, Claire Silberman Leaf, a philanthropist and former lawyer, according to The Brooklyn Eagle. The home was originally three units that the Leafs renovated and turned into one massive home.
Recommended Reading:
David Shaw’s Top Picks and Similarities with Warren Buffett’s 13F
Pine River Capital Management’s Top Bullish Moves During the First Quarter
Bridgewater Associates’ First Quarter Largest Equity Holdings
