The Stock Market May Get Cut in Half, But This ‘Most Undervalued’ Asset is About to Surge, Billionaire Investor Says (Market Watch)
Paul Singer, the hedge-fund billionaire behind Elliot Management, warned last month that the ultimate path of global stock markets is a drop of at least 50% from February highs. What’s an investor to do in the face of such a grim outlook? Load up on gold, perhaps. After all, according to a report this week from the Financial Times, that’s what the smart money’s doing.
How Carl Icahn’s Hertz Car Rental Got Dented (Bloomberg)
Forget cruise ships, for a sector that’s really suffering in the pandemic look no further than car-rental operators such as Hertz Global Holdings Inc. On Tuesday, the Florida-based company reached last-minute forbearance and waiver agreements with its debt holders to buy it time to deal with a liquidity crunch. Hertz now has until May 22 to sort out a problem that arose last month, when it stopped making payments on some of the cars it leases from a special purpose vehicle. Bloomberg News had reported that Hertz was preparing to file for bankruptcy protection unless creditors cut it some slack.
The Best Investing Stories of the Week: Market Strategies from Bill Ackman and David Rosenberg, Plus Loads of Stock Picks from Top-Ranked Managers (Business Insider)
It’s amazing how much can change in a week. Formerly red-hot stocks — having turned in their best month in decades — seem to be losing steam, while downtrodden oil prices are in the midst of a five-day rebound. As always, the Investing team at Business Insider is staying on top of these fluctuations and providing expert analysis and advice. Outlined below are the best stories of the week, divided into two categories: (1) expert recommendations and (2) stock picks.
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Union Wages Proxy Campaign to Unseat Two Alden Directors from Tribune Publishing Board (Chicago Tribune)
The union representing newsroom employees at the Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Publishing newspapers is waging a proxy campaign to unseat two board members representing hedge fund Alden Global Capital, the largest shareholder of the Chicago-based newspaper chain. In a letter dated Monday, the NewsGuild-Communication Workers of America urged Tribune Publishing shareholders to vote against the election of Dana Goldsmith Needleman and Christopher Minnetian to the eight-member board. A copy of the letter was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
Mini-Mercer Building Mini-Breitbart In Mini-Bid To Reelect Trump, Start War With China (Deal Breaker)
It’s safe to say that not everyone at Renaissance Technologies agreed with former co-CEO Robert Mercer’s politics and successful support for Donald Trump’s successful presidential ambitions. But it’s also safe to say that Mercer was not alone in said enthusiasms in East Setauket. Indeed, coinciding with Mercer’s own return from semi-political reclusion following his exit from RenTech, we find one of his former protégés attempting, on a more modest scale undoubtedly reflective of his more modest Medallion investments, to replicate Mercer’s efforts to build a right-wing media empire. And while we can’t say for sure whether Huayi Zhang shares Mercer’s (alleged) beliefs on the separation of the races and the curative value of piss, he sure hates the Chinese Communist Party every bit as much, and has some other eccentricities of his own.
Hedge Fund Association names 2020 Global Board of Directors (Hedge Week)
The Hedge Fund Association (HFA), an international nonprofit trade and nonpartisan lobbying organisation, has announced the results of its 2020 Global Board of Directors election. HFA members re-elected Camille Clemons, Jennifer Keeney and Emily Slocum, and elected Jill Calton, Lauri Goodwyn, James Koutoulas, Alexander Reyes and Joshua Stone. All HFA Directors are volunteers serving for up to two consecutive three-year terms. Jill Calton, UMB Fund Services. Camille Clemons, Cohen & Company. Lauri Goodwyn, Seward & Kissel LLP. Jennifer Keeney, BNY Mellon Wealth Management. James Koutoulas, Typhon Capital Management. Alexander Reyes, Citrin Cooperman. Emily Slocum, GQR Global Markets. Joshua Stone, FundsLawyer PLLC.
Why Jim Chanos Bets Against Fraud and China (Bloomberg)
What do you do when you are a Wall Street cynic with a long history of identifying fraud? If you are like this week’s guest on Masters in Business, Jim Chanos, you launch a short-focused hedge fund. Today, Chanos is a famed for helping to expose some of the most famous financial frauds, including Enron, Baldwin-United and Drexel Burnham. His firm, Kynikos Associates, just celebrated its 35th anniversary.
Why Warren Buffett Bet on the ‘Big 4’ Airlines Against His Own Advice, Then Dumped them at a Loss (Business Insider)
Warren Buffett recently revealed that his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate sold its stakes in the “big four” airlines in April for a fraction of what it paid for them, and admitted the bet was a “mistake.” The billionaire investor must be kicking himself, as he’s been burnt by the airline industry before and warned many times against investing in it. He jumped back in because he predicted that people would fly more in the coming years, and the airlines would at least maintain their value and continue buying back shares, but the coronavirus pandemic shattered those expectations.
Copy What Works (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – After the successful launch of its multiple-award-winning Formue Nord Markedsneutral, Danish asset manager Formue Nord launched a sister fund employing a similar strategy in the second half of 2018. Formue Nord Fokus, which employs a similar strategy of focusing on special situations and financing small- and midcap companies, has now joined the Nordic Hedge Index. According to Chris Albertsen, part of the five-member team at Formue Nord, the strategies of “both Formue Nord Markedsneutral and Formue Nord Fokus revolve around special situations and financing small- and midcap companies.” Both vehicles maintain beta-neutral portfolios at all times through the use of equity index futures or other derivatives. The main difference between the two funds, however, involves the time horizon for the financing solutions offered by these funds to companies in need of capital.
Tuesday 5/5 Insider Buying Report: UNVR, CFR (Nasdaq.com)
At Univar Solutions, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Monday, EVP, CFO Nicholas W. Alexos bought 250,000 shares of UNVR, at a cost of $13.33 each, for a total investment of $3.33M. Alexos was up about 8.6% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with UNVR trading as high as $14.48 in trading on Tuesday. Univar Solutions is trading up about 5.1% on the day Tuesday. This purchase marks the first one filed by Alexos in the past twelve months. And at Cullen/Frost Bankers, there was insider buying on Friday, by Director Graham M. Weston who purchased 29,400 shares at a cost of $68.00 each, for a total investment of $2M. Cullen/Frost Bankers is trading up about 3.4% on the day Tuesday. So far Weston is in the green, up about 3.4% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $70.31.
The EVP – Growth Initiatives of Ecolab (NYSE: ECL) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the EVP – Growth Initiatives of Ecolab (ECL), Roberto Inchaustegui, sold shares of ECL for $464.4K. Following Roberto Inchaustegui’s last ECL Sell transaction on March 05, 2019, the stock climbed by 21.6%. In addition to Roberto Inchaustegui, 2 other ECL executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
Annaly Capital Management Inc (NLY) CEO and CIO David L Finkelstein Bought $603,000 of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO and CIO of Annaly Capital Management Inc., David L Finkelstein, bought 100,000 shares of NLY on 05/04/2020 at an average price of $6.03 a share. The total cost of this purchase was $603,000. Annaly Capital Management Inc is a part of the real estate sector. As a mortgage real estate investment trust, it owns a portfolio of real estate related investments, including mortgage pass-through certificates and collateralized mortgage obligations. Annaly Capital Management Inc has a market cap of $8.75 billion; its shares were traded at around $6.12 . The dividend yield of Annaly Capital Management Inc stocks is 16.34%.
Swedish Real Estate CEO Detained on Insider Trading Allegations (Bloomberg Law)
The founder and chief executive of one of Sweden’s biggest real estate companies has been detained in custody amid allegations he was a party to insider trading. Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden, a Stockholm-based property company worth more than $2.3 billion, said on Tuesday that its CEO, Ilija Batljan, was being held by police amid concerns he’d violated the Sweden’s Market Abuse Regulation. The news sent shares in the company, dubbed SBB locally, plunging as much as 42%. SBB stands out as a prolific issuer of debt in recent years, with the equivalent of $4.7…
CFTC Awards More Than $2 Million to Four Whistleblowers (HedgeCo.net)
(HedgeCo.Net) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has announced a whistleblower award exceeding $2 million to be shared among four whistleblowers. The CFTC granted the whistleblowers’ award applications for both a CFTC action and related actions brought by another regulator. In issuing the award, the CFTC recognized the contributions of the whistleblowers, who jointly submitted a tip to the CFTC. Each of the whistleblowers also individually provided significant, ongoing assistance to the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement. “In many instances, whistleblowers are in the best position to identify suspicious conduct,” said CFTC Director of Enforcement James McDonald. “That’s precisely what happened in this case. After witnessing unusual activity, the whistleblowers worked together to quickly submit a joint tip with sufficient detail that drew our attention to the potential violations.”
