Mike Novogratz Backs Volatility Fund Betting Covid-Hit Trade Rebounds (Bloomberg)
Mike Novogratz, the billionaire Bitcoin investor, is wagering on volatility, a market that’s still scarred from the Covid crash earlier this year. Novogratz, 56, is among the backers of Millbank Dartmoor Portsmouth LLC, an investment fund founded by Wall Street veteran Dennis Davitt that seeks to have more than $1 billion under management within the next 12 months. The firm will offer volatility-based strategies to investors such as pension funds and family offices, Davitt said in an interview — including versions of the so-called short-volatility bets that imploded in March.
Two Sigma has seen Take-Up Surge for its Risk-Analysis Tool Venn this Year — Here’s Why the $58 billion Hedge Fund Thinks It has a Leg Up on Asset Management Rivals (Business Insider)
Two Sigma‘s Venn, its year-old risk and analytics offering, has more than 2,200 clients and increased its revenue four-fold since the beginning of the year. Jake Dwyer, the general manager of the platform, told Business Insider in an interview that Venn added a number of factor and analyses this year, including a crowding factor that shows a stock’s short percentage and an extreme scenario analysis. Venn’s growth, Dwyer said, will come from its current market – US institutional allocators – as well as international investors and big banks’ wealth management teams.
‘He Wants to Make Money’: Trump Not Concerned about his Legacy, Says Former Aide and Hedge Fund Boss Anthony Scaramucci (Independent.co.uk)
Donald Trump is more concerned about making money than taking care of his presidential legacy, former campaign staffer Anthony Scaramucci has said. Mr Scaramucci, ex-White House communications director, said the president would use his final days in office to think about how he can benefit financially from his enhanced profile.
Hedge Fund to Take TalkTalk Private in £1.1bn Acquisition (CapacityMedia.com)
UK independent telco TalkTalk is set to be taken over by a hedge fund and a private equity firm for £1.1 billion. Toscafund Asset Management, which is said to have assets worth £4 billion, bid £0.97 a share for the company. TalkTalk’s co-founder Charles Dunstone has backed the deal. Tosca is working with Penta Capital, a private equity investor. The deal has acceptances from owners of 76% of TalkTalk’s shares, including Dunstone, who had an estimated 29.5% a year ago. The deal will see him leave TalkTalk with £320 million once the acquisition is completed in the first quarter of 2021.
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This Hedge-Fund Billionaire is a Huge Fan of Sen. Kelly Loeffler – But Why? (MSN)
On Oct. 9, billionaire Ken Griffin, the head of a multinational financial services company, gave $2 million to a super PAC called Georgia United Victory (GUV), which had originally been launched by allies of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp but at the time exclusively supported Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s election campaign. Griffin ranks among the richest people in America, and during the 2020 election cycle he spent at least $57 million to support conservative candidates, most of that on Republicans in tight U.S. Senate campaigns.
Bill Miller Beats S&P 500 for Second Year With Sharp Bet on Uber (Bloomberg)
Bill Miller’s flagship mutual fund is poised to beat the S&P 500 index for a second straight year, aided by a timely options bet on Uber Technologies Inc. The fund bought into Uber before California voters approved a ballot measure last month exempting gig-economy companies from classifying all drivers and couriers as employees, a change that would have increased costs.
Fail Fast to Succeed (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Quantitative asset management firm OQAM out of Sweden’s southern town of Malmö is celebrating the two-year anniversary of its first – and so far only – investment product, the multi-strategy systematic hedge fund named ia. “For us this is a large milestone and an opportunity to reflect,” says CIO Thorbjörn Wallentin, who co-founded OQAM with Andreas Olsson. “Five years ago… we started OQAM. Two optimistic and admittingly slightly naive founders with a dream to build a successful quantitative asset management firm outside the established financial hubs,” Wallentin reflects on the beginning of their journey. “We have a lot of work to do, but this week our first product, ia, celebrates two years.”
Hedge Funds Delivered their Worst Performance Against Stock Benchmarks Since 2011 by One Measure (MarketWatch)
It appears to be the best of times and worst of times for Wall Street hedge funds. But for the biggest active fund managers, it is decidedly a poor stretch of comparative performance, according to data from J.P. Morgan, which indicates that returns against a benchmark, known as alpha in the parlance of investment managers, were the worst since 2011 and particularly abysmal for large hedge funds.
Steve Cohen: His Rise from Great Neck, to Wall Street, to Owner of the Mets (Newsday.com)
Before Steven A. Cohen used his intuitive mind and steely nerve to create a career on Wall Street, become unfathomably wealthy and purchase the New York Mets, he put those skills to work at the poker table in a friend’s basement in the early 1970s. On summer nights, he and his crew from Great Neck North High School gathered at Kenny Ginsburg’s house. The stakes were not high. Just a dollar bet here and quarter raise there, bigger as they got better. Their variant of choice: seven-card stud with a high-low split, in which the person with the worst hand gets half the pot.
Thursday 12/17 Insider Buying Report: SONA (Nasdaq.com)
On Wednesday, President/CEO Dennis J. Zember Jr. purchased $1.16M worth of Southern National Bancorp Of Virginia, purchasing 100,000 shares at a cost of $11.57 a piece. Before this latest buy, Zember Jr. bought SONA at 3 other times during the past year, for a total cost of $369,465 at an average of $12.32 per share. Southern National Bancorp Of Virginia is trading up about 4.2% on the day Thursday. So far Zember Jr. is in the green, up about 8.0% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $12.50.
Airbnb Inc (ABNB) CEO and Chairman Brian Chesky Sold $30 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO and Chairman of Airbnb Inc, Brian Chesky, sold 441,177 shares of ABNB on 12/14/2020 at an average price of $68 a share. The total sale was $30 million. Airbnb Inc has a market cap of $82.44 billion; its shares were traded at around $137.990000 with and P/S ratio of 65.06. GuruFocus has detected 1 severe warning sign with Airbnb Inc.
The EVP of Flushing Financial (NASDAQ: FFIC) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the EVP of Flushing Financial (FFIC), Theresa Kelly, bought shares of FFIC for $199.9K. Following this transaction Theresa Kelly’s holding in the company was increased by 22.85% to a total of $1.12 million. This is Kelly’s first Buy trade following 5 Sell transactions.
