Hedge Fund Looks for Bottom in Turkish Lira (Bloomberg)
Hedge fund manager Peter Kisler is looking to this week’s Turkish central-bank meeting for a signal to start buying the lira. The question is whether Turkey will let its currency weaken further or hike rates to defend it, said North Asset Management’s Kisler. The London-based investor sold all its Turkish assets before capital outflows started accelerating in March, fueling the lira’s decline to a record against the dollar.
$10 Billion Stock-Picking Fund Soroban Loaded Up on Bill Ackman’s New SPAC — Here are Highlights (CNBC)
Soroban Capital Partners built a 5.6% stake in the biggest special purpose acquisition company ever — Bill Ackman’s $4 billion Pershing Square Tontine – to jump in on Wall Street’s latest craze. The top stock picking fund is also making big bets on the economy. Here are the highlights.
Hedge Fund Third Point Sells ADRs in Sony: SEC Filings (Reuters)
BOSTON/TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. hedge fund Third Point LLC, which had been pressing Sony Corp (6758.T) to make changes including spinning-off of its chip unit, has sold all of its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) in the Japanese electronics company, regulatory filings showed. But the fund, headed by one of the world’s highest-profile activist investors, Daniel Loeb, still owns a large portion of the company’s Japanese shares, a person familiar with the fund told Reuters.
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Hedge Fund Performance Update: July 2020 (Preqin.com)
The Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark gained 3.29% in July, pushing the YTD performance to +2.88%. CTAs recovered from losses across all structures in June (-0.68%), returning +3.13% in July. This factsheet presents the hedge fund performance benchmarks for July 2020. Plus, the YTD and 12-month return figures for all top-level strategies, structures, denominations, and size classifications.
Citigroup Gets Freeze on Brigade Money in $900 Million Error (Bloomberg)
Citigroup Inc. scored a temporary court order freezing $175 million that Brigade Capital Management LP declined to return after the bank accidentally transferred more than $900 million to Revlon Inc. lenders. The order followed a hearing Tuesday in which the bank and the hedge fund faced off over Citigroup’s expensive blunder. The two will be back in court on Wednesday as the judge determines the next steps in their legal battle, including whether to hold a hearing on the bank’s request for a preliminary injunction forcing Brigade to give the money back while the case proceeds. Citigroup sued Brigade on Monday.
PriorNilsson HFs Move in Tandem (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – The month of July was the fourth consecutive month of positive returns for global equity markets coming off the March low. The three hedge funds under the umbrella of PriorNilsson Fonder – PriorNilsson Idea, PriorNilsson Yield and PriorNilsson Balans – have all followed suit and turned in a fourth consecutive positive month in July to recoup the March losses. “The central banks’ massive asset purchase programs and fiscal stimulus measures implemented in most countries have given the market the support and belief that the crisis will be overcome,” says portfolio manager PO Nilsson, who founded PriorNilsson Fonder with Torgny Prior in 2002. Nilsson points out that the majority of companies in both the United States and Sweden beat the market expectations prevailing before the second-quarter earnings season kicked off.
Futures Exchange Reaches End of the Line (HFAlert.com)
OneChicago, the only U.S. exchange for futures pegged to single stocks, is closing its doors. The firm will discontinue operations on Sept. 21 with a final trading date of Sept. 18, when 99.4% of its contracts with open interest are set to expire. Its staff is working with clearing partners and brokers to unwind the other 0.6% of yet-to-be-settled contracts before that date. OneChicago already delisted all products without open interest on Aug. 14. The shutdown reflects a feeling among OneChicago’s owners – Cboe, CME Group and Interactive Brokers – that trading volume had fallen too steeply in recent years to justify the continued operation of the business. OneChicago had been handling less than 1 million contracts per month this year following a gradual decline from about 1.5 million during the 2015-2017 period.
Clear Hedge Capital to offer loans to large institutions with BitGo Prime (Opalesque.com)
Clear Hedge Capital, a lending group for alternative investment vehicles, has announced it had entered into a partnership with BitGo Prime to offer multi-million loans to institutional investors. Both companies, according to an official press release, will focus their services – built by a Wall Street team – only on institutional clients. The offering comes with an agreement to collaborate and focus exclusively on providing loans in the digital asset space to institutions with loan sizes of $10 million and above. The demand side would include hedge funds, market makers, trading houses, OTC providers, crypto lending firms, and exchanges.
Wednesday 8/19 Insider Buying Report: FOX, APG (Nasdaq.com)
At Fox, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Saturday, Executive Chairman, CEO Lachlan K. Murdoch bought 229,024 shares of FOX, at a cost of $25.74 each, for a total investment of $5.9M. So far Murdoch is in the green, up about 1.6% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $26.14. Fox is trading up about 1.2% on the day Wednesday. Before this latest buy, Murdoch bought FOX on 2 other occasions during the past twelve months, for a total investment of $4.27M at an average of $28.30 per share. And on Friday, CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER Paul W. Grunau bought $1.03M worth of API Group, buying 70,000 shares at a cost of $14.74 each. This purchase marks the first one filed by Grunau in the past twelve months. API Group is trading up about 1.2% on the day Wednesday. Grunau was up about 7.0% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with APG trading as high as $15.77 at last check today.
Procter & Gamble Co (PG) CEO – Health Care Steven D Bishop Sold $2.4 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO – Health Care of Procter & Gamble Co., Steven D Bishop, sold 17,693 shares of PG on 08/18/2020 at an average price of $136.53 a share. The total sale was $2.4 million. Procter & Gamble Co is a consumer goods company. The firm markets its products internationally through various channels which include mass merchandisers, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug stores, and department stores.
The President & COO of IDEX (NYSE: IEX) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the President & COO of IDEX (IEX), Eric Ashleman, sold shares of IEX for $1.43M. Following Eric Ashleman’s last IEX Sell transaction on May 11, 2020, the stock climbed by 24.0%. In addition to Eric Ashleman, 5 other IEX executives reported Sell trades in the last month. The company has a one-year high of $178.14 and a one-year low of $104.56. Currently, IDEX has an average volume of 377.19K. IEX’s market cap is $13.33 billion and the company has a P/E ratio of 35.80.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) Chief Technology Officer & EVP Mark D Papermaster Sold $3.5 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chief Technology Officer & EVP of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Mark D Papermaster, sold 43,000 shares of AMD on 08/14/2020 at an average price of $82.35 a share. The total sale was $3.5 million. Advanced Micro Devices Inc designs and produces microprocessors and low-power processor solutions for the computer, communications, and consumer electronics industries.
