After Making Money In A Bear Market, David Einhorn Is Shorting Elon Musk With A Long Twitter Bet (Forbes)
David Einhorn‘s Greenlight Capital generated a return of 8.4% for the second quarter, bringing its year-to-date return to 13.2% at a time when most other hedge funds are languishing with negative returns. In his second-quarter letter to investors, Einhorn emphasized that they achieved their positive result despite being net long in a bear market. Greenlight makes money in a bear market: He added that their long positions plunged, especially in late June, but their shorts plummeted even more, resulting in a sizable positive return. The fund didn’t add any new material longs during the second quarter because it’s a bear market, and they are building some dry powder for future opportunities.
Brevan Howard Scores Largest Crypto Hedge Fund Launch Ever (Blockworks)
Brevan Howard Asset Management has pulled off the largest crypto hedge fund launch yet. The firm’s flagship digital assets-focused vehicle raised more than $1 billion from institutional investors, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter — with the vast majority of the lofty haul timed with the fund’s launch earlier this year.
Hedge Fund Manager Wants To Know How He Can Be Guilty Of Violating Rules That Were Impossible To Understand (Deal Breaker)
When it comes to the rules governing any kind of corporate vote, complication and opacity are usually in the company in question’s interest. And, on that front, one has to hand it to the folks at BakerHostetler, who ingeniously crafted a set so convoluted that even they couldn’t figure them out. [Daniel] Small’s attorney Seth Levine told jurors that rules about which of Platinum’s bondholder affiliates could vote were so complicated that even the “high powered lawyers” at BakerHostetler and other firms who consulted on it did not see a problem at the time. And, really, would you expect anything else of a law firm hired by or on behalf of Platinum Partners, the ethically-challenged defunct hedge fund that paid bribes (stuffed in leather bags) for mandates it didn’t want and which has already given us more courtroom entertainment and plot twists than several seasons of “Law & Order”?
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Fund-Managing Billionaires Narrowly Escaped the Carried-Interest Tax Loophole Being Closed. Here’s What Titans Like Bill Ackman had to Say about It. (Business Insider)
Closing the carried-interest tax loophole, which benefits private equity and hedge fund managers, has been a political football for two decades. And thanks to a last-minute save from Arizona Sen. Kristen Sinema, it’s looking as if the tax break will stay in the game. A week after Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Chuck Schumer brought the bill forward, Sinema — whose support was needed for the bill to pass through the US senate — agreed to cooperate with condition that the tax provision was removed.
Tiger Global Underestimated Inflation Impact as Flagship Fund Drops 50% (Reuters)
HONG KONG, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Tiger Global, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, saw its flagship fund fall by 50% in the first half of the year after it underestimated the impact of a surge in global inflation on markets, according to letter to investors. The U.S.-based fund lost 24.7% in the second quarter, increasing its loss for the first half to 50% from the end of last year, the letter issued by Tiger earlier this week and seen by Reuters on Friday said.
Citadel Replaces Head of Agriculture as Crosby Leaves Hedge Fund (Bloomberg)
Citadel appointed Willis Kidd as its head of agriculture after Robert Crosby left the $53 billion hedge fund earlier this summer. Kidd, who joined the firm in 2014, is now running the agriculture team as a portfolio manager in Chicago, a company spokesman confirmed. The promotion follows the departure of Crosby, who was hired in 2019 to help Citadel expand in soft commodities, livestock and biofuels trading.
Clico Investment Fund Assets Go Up to $6.33b in June (Newsday.co.tt)
The Clico Investment Fund’s assets have increased by more than $4.5 million in June, bringing its total assets to $6.33 billion. In March its assets stood at $6.29 billion. The increase was noted in the investment fund’s unaudited statements for the quarter ended June 30, released on Wednesday. The statement also noted that net assets value per unit increased by $0.24, from $30.77 in 2020 to $31.01 in June.
What Are Hedge Funds and How Do They Work? Definition, Purpose & Types (The Street)
Hedge funds are sort of like mutual funds for the ultra-wealthy – they pool the money of their clients (mostly institutional and accredited investors) and then invest it in a variety of securities. Unlike most mutual funds, however, they make use of advanced trading strategies like hedging, shorting, and using leverage with the goal of generating very high returns for their wealthy clients while minimizing risk. Because they are very actively managed by experienced professional traders and seek to produce higher-than-average returns using sophisticated trading strategies, they charge much higher fees than the mutual funds and ETFs available to retail investors.
‘Big Short’ Michael Burry Warns of Stock Market ‘Silliness’ in Another Cryptic Tweet (GoBankingRates)
Michael Burry, of “The Big Short” fame and founder of the hedge fund Scion Asset Management, took to Twitter again, this time warning of “silliness” in the markets. In a now deleted August 4 tweet, Burry wrote, “The Silliness is back. After 1929, after 1968, after 2000, after 2008, the strain of Silliness that transformed bulls into bubbles completely and utterly disappeared. But that familiar COVID-era Silliness is not dead yet.
Friday 8/5 Insider Buying Report: PINS, SWK (Nasdaq.com)
At Pinterest, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer William J. Ready purchased 222,551 shares of PINS, at a cost of $22.47 each, for a total investment of $5.00M. Pinterest is trading up about 0.3% on the day Friday. And on Tuesday, Director Andrea J. Ayers purchased $1.48M worth of Stanley Black & Decker, purchasing 15,500 shares at a cost of $95.69 a piece. Before this latest buy, Ayers made one other buy in the past year, purchasing $1.48M shares for a cost of $95.69 each. Stanley Black & Decker is trading up about 1.9% on the day Friday. Investors can grab SWK at a price even lower than Ayers did, with the stock changing hands as low as $93.34 in trading on Friday which is 2.5% below Ayers’s purchase price.
Gobi Acquisition Insider Sold Over $5.00M In Company Stock (Benzinga)
PAG Investment LP, an insider at Gobi Acquisition (GOBI) reported a large insider sell on August 2, according to a new SEC filing. What Happened: A Form 4 filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday showed that LP sold 500,000 shares of Gobi Acquisition. The total transaction amounted to $5,005,000.
1 of 3 Defendants Pleads Guilty in Medtronic Insider Trading Conspiracy (TwinCities.com)
One of three men charged with insider trading involving a Medtronic acquisition pleaded guilty Thursday under a deal with prosecutors. Afshin “Alex” Farahan of California faces 24-30 months in prison for conspiring to engage in insider trading, if the judge follows sentencing guidelines. During a plea hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, Farahan admitted he was visiting his friend, Doron “Ron” Tavlin, in Minneapolis in 2018 when Tavlin gave him information about Medtronic’s potential acquisition of Mazor Robotics.
