Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Jeffrey Ubben, Michael Novogratz, Michael Burry, Daniel Kamensky, People’s United Financial, Inc. (PBCT), Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (SBH), and More

Novogratz Sees Bitcoin at $100,000, ‘Every’ Company Adopting (Bloomberg)
Michael Novogratz, the founder of cryptocurrency investment firm Galaxy Digital, sees Bitcoin more than doubling to $100,000 by the end of the year, spurred higher as more companies allow customers to use the token to make purchases. The coin jumped to an all-time high of $44,795 Monday after Tesla Inc. said it had bought $1.5 billion of the token with corporate cash reserves. The company also said it will allow customers to buy its electric cars with the coins.

Exclusive: Ubben Seeks $8 Billion for New Hedge Fund Amid Talks with Exxon – Sources (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Jeffrey Ubben, a hedge fund veteran in talks to join Exxon Mobil Corp’s board, is seeking to raise as much as $8 billion for his new socially and environmentally conscious fund, according to people familiar with the matter. This would be the first fund Ubben has amassed since he launched his new firm, Inclusive Capital Partners, last summer. He left ValueAct Capital, the activist hedge fund he co-founded in 2000, while retaining stewardship of the ValueAct Spring Fund, a $1.2 billion capital pool focused on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) investing.

‘Big Short’ Investor Michael Burry Blasts Trading Apps, Calls Robinhood a ‘Dangerous Casino’ (Business Insider)
Michael Burry on Tuesday dismissed the idea that Robinhood and other trading apps were empowering retail investors and disrupting the financial industry. “The #mainstreetrevolution is a myth,” the Scion Asset Management boss tweeted. “Zero commissions and gamified apps were designed to feed flows to the two most influential WS trading houses.” Burry, best known for his starring role in Michael Lewis’ book “The Big Short,” was referring to Robinhood and some of its peers selling their order flows to Wall Street firms such as Citadel.

Insider Trading Wall Street Trader Panic

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Renaissance, Pershing Square Among Hedge Funds that Declined in January (Financial News)
Renaissance Technologies and Pershing Square International, titans of the hedge fund investment world, have had a tumultuous start to the year according to an HSBC industry report, as some managers have scrambled to reposition amidst a spike in market volatility. Renaissance’s institutional equities fund international lost 9.5% through to 29 January and its institutional diversified alpha fund dropped 5.4%. Last month, its founder, James Simons told investors he would retire as chair at the beginning of 2021.

Healthcare Hedge Fund Rhenman Still Buoyant on Sector, as Flagship Strategy Advances in January (Hedge Week)
The healthcare sector can expect a “reasonably stable political environment” this year, according to healthcare-focused specialist hedge fund Rhenman & Partners Asset Management, whose buoyant stance comes after its flagship strategy finished last month in positive territory. The firm’s flagship Rhenman Healthcare Equity Long/Short hedge fund rose 1.32 per cent in its main euro share class last month, as its SEK-denominated tranche grew 1.81 per cent.

SharingAlpha’s Top Nordic Hedge Fund (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Two multi-asset, multi-strategy funds part of Nordea’s Alpha Solutions were among the top-rated hedge funds of January 2021, according to asset allocators on fund rating platform SharingAlpha. Nordea’s Alpha 15 MA Fund and Alpha 10 MA Fund were also among the ten highest-ranked hedge funds of 2020, according to the platform that enables professional fund investors such as pension funds and funds of funds to rate investment vehicles on the SharingAlpha platform. User-generated fund rating platform SharingAlpha, founded by the two brothers Oren and Yuval Kaplan out of their base just outside Tel Aviv, has become the world’s largest fund rating platform in terms of the number of fund selectors contributing to fund ratings. The TripAdvisor-style platform for funds features more than 13,000 fund selectors, rating over 12,000 funds.

What Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Ray Dalio is Reading to Make Sense of the World and the Economy Right Now (Business Insider)
Ray Dalio, founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, has built his billion-dollar career on making predictions on companies, the market, and the economy. To make the right predictions, he needs a bird’s eye view of the world’s financial and geopolitical happenings.

Hedge Fund Founder Pleads Guilty to Neiman Marcus Bankruptcy Fraud (AI-CIO.com)
Daniel Kamensky pressured a rival investor to drop its bid for assets he wanted on the cheap. The founder of a New York-based hedge fund has pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud for pressuring a rival investor to abandon a bid to acquire certain assets from the Neiman Marcus bankruptcy so he could buy them for as little as half as much. When luxury department store Neiman Marcus filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May, Marble Ridge Capital founder Daniel Kamensky was appointed co-chair of the official committee of unsecured creditors.

Tuesday 2/9 Insider Buying Report: SBH, HBCP (Nasdaq.com)
At Sally Beauty Holdings, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Monday, CEO Christian A. Brickman purchased 10,000 shares of SBH, for a cost of $14.53 each, for a total investment of $145,250. So far Brickman is in the green, up about 4.1% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $15.12. Sally Beauty Holdings is trading up about 1% on the day Tuesday. Before this latest buy, Brickman purchased SBH at 4 other times during the past year, for a total investment of $457,340 at an average of $11.73 per share. And at Home Bancorp, there was insider buying on Monday, by Director Ann Forte Trappey who bought 1,851 shares at a cost of $31.38 each, for a total investment of $58,079. Before this latest buy, Trappey made one other buy in the past year, purchasing $49,001 shares for a cost of $25.79 each. Home Bancorp is trading up about 0.1% on the day Tuesday. So far Trappey is in the green, up about 2.0% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $32.00.

The Chairman & CEO of People’s United Financial (NASDAQ: PBCT) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Today, the Chairman & CEO of People’s United Financial (PBCT), John P. Barnes, bought shares of PBCT for $1.46M. This recent transaction increases John P. Barnes’ holding in the company by 17.13% to a total of $9.28 million. Following John P. Barnes’ last PBCT Buy transaction on March 12, 2012, the stock climbed by 6.2%. The company has a one-year high of $16.37 and a one-year low of $9.37. PBCT’s market cap is $6.17 billion and the company has a P/E ratio of 10.80. Based on 8 analyst ratings, the analyst consensus is Moderate Buy with an average price target of $15.55, reflecting a -6.5% downside.

Svb Financial Group (SIVB) President and CEO Gregory W Becker Sold $2.2 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
President and CEO of Svb Financial Group, Gregory W Becker, sold 4,570 shares of SIVB on 02/05/2021 at an average price of $488.97 a share. The total sale was $2.2 million. SVB Financial Group provides a diverse set of banking and financial products and services including asset management, private wealth management, brokerage and other investment services.

SEBI Comes Out with Disclosure Format Under Insider Trading Rules (Live Mint)
NEW DELHI : Capital markets watchdog Sebi on Tuesday came out with a new format for disclosures to be made under the insider trading norms. In light of amendments to the PIT Regulations affecting the inclusion of members of the promoter group, and designated person in place of employee and on the basis of feedback received from market participants and exchanges, the relevant disclosure formats have been suitably revised, Sebi said in a circular.