Carolina Panthers Owner David Tepper Shakes Up Portfolio: Sells 8 Stocks, Ups Google Stake (Benzinga)
Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper, who also manages the hedge fund Appaloosa Management, decreased the number of stocks in his portfolio from 30 to 22 throughout the third quarter. His holdings now hover at around $1.36 billion. Tepper has also reduced his stake in the majority of energy and technology stocks that make up the portfolio.
Jim Simons’ RenTech Fund Virtually Eliminated its $500 Million Tesla Stake Last Quarter – and Slashed Its Twitter Bet by 90% (Business Insider)
Renaissance Technologies sold virtually all of its Tesla shares last quarter, and slashed its Twitter stake by 90%, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed this week. The quantitative fund pared its Tesla position from a split-adjusted 2.2 million shares valued at $504 million at the end of June, to only 1,400 shares worth less than $400,000 at the end of September.
The ‘Next Warren Buffett’ Curse Isn’t Always Fatal (Bloomberg)
A couple of months ago, crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was peering out from the cover of Fortune magazine above the words “The Next Warren Buffett?” Now he’s at the center of a spectacular financial collapse, with a net worth estimated by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index at zero when I checked last. Less spectacularly — and much less disastrously for those who entrusted their money to him — venture capitalist and “SPAC king” Chamath Palihapitiya announced in September that he was closing his biggest special purpose acquisition company and one other and returning $1.6 billion to investors, 20 months after describing in a Bloomberg interview how he envisioned himself taking over the Berkshire Hathaway chairman’s “mantle” with a “Berkshire-like instrument that is all things, you know, not to sound egotistical, but all things Chamath, all things Social Capital.”
Asian Hedge Funds Amassed China’s Pinduoduo, Ditched JD.com in Q3 (Reuters)
Some of Asia’s largest hedge funds scooped up large stakes in Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo in the third quarter while cutting holdings in its rival JD.com, according to their latest regulatory filings. The switch seemed to be driven by the view that Pinduoduo’s global ambition and inexpensive products would give it an edge over the purely domestic JD.com business.
Hedge Funds Started Off Q4 With Positive Returns, Investors Prefer Multi-Strategy (Forbes)
About 67% of hedge funds generated positive returns in October, a remarkable turnaround from the 31% that were positive the month before. However, most funds have a long way to go to recover the losses they’ve racked up during this year’s brutal bear market. The overall weighted average return for hedge funds administered by Citco was 1.6%, as all strategies generated positive weighted average returns. The overall median return was 0.8%, demonstrating that the largest funds were the best performers last month.
$20 Million Bet On Datadog? Check Out These 4 Stocks Insiders Are Buying (Benzinga)
Datadog: The Trade: Datadog, Inc. (DDOG) Director Matthew Jacobson bought a total of 296,965 shares at an average price of $67.35. To acquire these shares, it cost around $20 million. Appian: The Trade: Appian Corporation (APPN) 10% owner Colin Moran acquired a total of 296,831 shares an average price of $39.52. To acquire these shares, it cost around $11.73 million.
Wednesday 11/16 Insider Buying Report: ESI, MASI (Nasdaq.com)
On Tuesday, Element Solutions’ Director, Martin E. Franklin, made a $17.20M purchase of ESI, buying 902,000 shares at a cost of $19.07 a piece. So far Franklin is in the green, up about 2.3% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $19.51. Element Solutions is trading up about 0.9% on the day Wednesday. This buy marks the first one filed by Franklin in the past year. And on Monday, CEO and Chairman of the Board Joe E. Kiani purchased $3.97M worth of Masimo, purchasing 31,994 shares at a cost of $123.99 a piece. Before this latest buy, Kiani made one other buy in the past twelve months, purchasing $1.01M shares for a cost of $129.27 a piece. Masimo is trading up about 5.5% on the day Wednesday. So far Kiani is in the green, up about 10.5% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $137.03.
Ex-Tesla Exec Enters Guilty Plea To Insider Trading On Piedmont Lithium (The Deep Dive)
A former Tesla executive plead guilty to insider trading charges in Australia after purchasing stock in a lithium mine before a deal with the company was revealed. Kurt Schlosser, Tesla’s ex-head for Australia and New Zealand, learned ahead of time about the carmaker’s off-take agreement with Australian mining firm Piedmont Lithium, which was currently developing a lithium project in North Carolina. The deal was for Tesla to purchase around one-third of Piedmont’s planned 160,000 tonnes annual spodumene lithium production for five years.
