Graham Capital Management’s Return, AUM, and Holdings

2018 didn’t start off much better for Graham Capital Management. In February, its biggest fund, Tactical Trend, lost 8.7% and is down by 3.3% for the year, while its K4D-15V Fund lost 9% in the same month and is down by 4.3% for the year, according to Bloomberg. As per most recent data, Graham Capital Management has around $15 billion in assets under management.

Our own calculations of the performance of Graham Capital’s 13F portfolio paint a more promising picture, though an incomplete one. Among stocks with a value of at least $1 billion, of which Graham Capital had 71 in its portfolio, those stocks returned an average of 19.8% in Q2 based on the size of those positions at the end of Q2. If nothing else, Graham Capital scored strong returns from its long positions in larger companies in Q2.

Insider Monkey’s flagship strategy identifies the best performing 100 hedge funds at the end of each quarter and invests in their consensus stock picks. This way it is always invested in the best ideas of the best performing hedge funds and is able to generate much higher returns than the market. Since its inception in May 2014, our flagship strategy generated a cumulative return of 121% vs. a cumulative gain of 66.6% for the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) (see the details here).

The biggest new position the fund acquired in the second quarter of 2018 was in Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOX), buying 140,500 shares worth around $6.98 million, followed by a new 400,000-share position in General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), as the fund attained a position valued at $10.26 million on June 30.

Some of the companies in which Graham Capital Management is seriously losing interest include Apple (AAPL), in which the fund lowered its stake by 93% in Q2 to 5,389 shares worth just under $1 million, and NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI), in which the fund decreased its stake by 72% to 112,151 shares, leaving it with a position valued at $12.25 million. Interestingly, hedge funds that we track are becoming more bullish on NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXPI), as 90 investors reported long positions in the company as of the end of the second quarter, up by 22 from the end of the first quarter. Seeing this optimism from smart money investors, it can be questioned whether Graham Capital Management should have lowered its position in the company.

Disclosure: None