British Hedge Fund Billionaire Takes Climate Fight to S&P 500 (The Wall Street Journal)
A billionaire hedge-fund manager is bankrolling an unprecedented campaign to force dozens of the world’s largest companies to publish carbon-emission reduction plans and put them up for shareholder vote. Frustrated by the pace at which corporations are cutting emissions, Christopher Hohn is backing a global effort to speed things up. He is working with nonprofit groups and investor organizations to get at least 100 of the companies in the S&P 500 stock index to adopt the initiative by the end of 2022—voluntarily if possible and through proxy battles at annual shareholder meetings if not.
Dan Sundheim’s $20 Billion D1 Capital Loses About 20% This Month (Bloomberg)
Dan Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners, one of last year’s top-performing hedge funds, lost about 20% this month through Wednesday, making it one of the biggest victims yet to emerge as retail investors target hedge funds’ favorite positions. The fund managed about $20 billion as this year began — far more than rivals such as Melvin Capital and Maplelane Capital that have also taken hits to their portfolios amid the attacks. D1’s loss, described by people briefed on the situation, contrasts with a 60% gain during last year’s pandemic turmoil.
Billionaire Investor Mario Gabelli Started Investing When Eisenhower was President. He Told Us How He Leverages Almost 5 Decades of Experience to Identify Winning Stocks — and Shared 5 of his Favorite Picks. (Business Insider)
Mario Gabelli has seen it all. The billionaire fund manager, who grew up in the Bronx, started investing in 1955 when Dwight Eisenhower was the president of the United States. “I remember going to a brokerage office in the Bronx near Fordham University and the tapes would run very late,” Gabelli said in an interview. “And I would stay there watching how they posted trades.”
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Billionaire David Tepper Says ‘Gangup.Inc’ War on Shorts Might Not End Well for Stock-Market Investors (Market Watch)
That’s investor David Tepper, the billionaire founder of Appaloosa Management and one of the all-time most successful hedge-fund managers, urging caution in remarks to CNBC as an army of individual investors takes on short sellers in a battle that’s dominating Wall Street as the New Year gets under way. Shares of videogame-retailer GameStop Corp. (GME), have quintupled this week and shares of other companies in which hedge funds also have large short positions also soared as investors, banding together on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum and elsewhere, aggressively bought call options in a successful effort to run up prices.
Mining Fund Seeks LPs After Muscular Start (Green Street)
Coast Capital is looking to take in an additional $150 million for its Coast Capital Midas Fund before closing it to new investors. The New York firm launched the vehicle Sept. 15, capping a founders share class at $100 million at yearend. Coast will close the fund to new limited partners when it reaches $250 million. The Midas vehicle gained an impressive 41% in less than four months last year by investing in the stocks of small and mid-size mining companies it views as undervalued and ripe for consolidation. The theory is that the shares will rise significantly if those companies are acquired. To aid its approach, Coast sometimes plays an activist role, helping to make companies more attractive to their larger peers.
Bracing for the Return of Inflation (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – The team managing Nordic Cross Total Return Bond Fund is bracing for the possibility that higher inflation expectations may make a sudden return, which could trigger increased volatility in corporate bond markets. Fredrik Tauson, a founding partner and portfolio manager at Swedish asset manager Nordic Cross Asset Management, tells Bloomberg that their Total Return Bond Fund has taken advantage of “normal” market conditions to increase the portion of liquid assets in the portfolio.
Hedge-Fund Titans Lose Billions to Reddit Traders Running Amok (Bloomberg)
For once, Main Street is beating Wall Street. In a matter of weeks, two hedge-fund legends — Steve Cohen and Dan Sundheim — have suffered bruising losses as amateur traders banded together to take on some of the world’s most sophisticated investors. In Cohen’s case, he and Ken Griffin ended up rushing to the aid of a third, Gabe Plotkin, whose firm was getting beaten down.
Several Hedge Funds Stung by Market Turmoil (The Wall Street Journal)
More hedge funds are being hit by losses on the recent market turmoil. Traders say the pain that has afflicted top hedge funds Melvin Capital Management and Maplelane Capital in recent days is spreading, as an increasing number of stocks with significant short interest surge and as funds dealing with losses pull back their exposure to the stock market on both the long and short sides of their portfolios.
Thursday 1/28 Insider Buying Report: INTC, DFH (Nasdaq.com)
At Intel, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Monday, CEO Robert Holmes Swan purchased 27,244 shares of INTC, at a cost of $55.57 each, for a total investment of $1.51M. Intel Corp is trading up about 5.8% on the day Thursday. Before this latest buy, Swan bought INTC at 2 other times during the past twelve months, for a total cost of $761,674 at an average of $47.48 per share. And also on Monday, COO Doug Moran bought $780,000 worth of Dream Finders Homes, buying 60,000 shares at a cost of $13.00 each. Dream Finders Homes is trading up about 2% on the day Thursday. So far Moran is in the green, up about 76.8% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $22.99.
Stamps.com Inc (STMP) CEO of subsidiary ShipStation James Nathan Jones Sold $18.1 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO of subsidiary ShipStation of Stamps.com Inc, James Nathan Jones, sold 75,031 shares of STMP on 01/27/2021 at an average price of $241.35 a share. The total sale was $18.1 million. Stamps.com Inc provides internet-based postage solutions. Its customers use the Company’s service to mail and ship a variety of mail pieces, including postcards, envelopes, flats and packages, using a range United States Postal Service mail classes.
The Chief Risk Officer of Goldman Sachs Group is Exercising Options (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday it was reported that the Chief Risk Officer of Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Brian J Lee, exercised options to sell 5,017 GS shares for a total transaction value of $1.45M. This recent transaction decreases Brian J Lee’s holding in the company by 16% to a total of $11.53 million. In addition to Brian J Lee, 11 other GS executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
