Einhorn Cuts Consol Stake After Coal Miner Slumped 50% (Bloomberg)
Activist investor David Einhorn has reduced his stake in Consol Energy Inc. after the coal miner slumped 50% last year. Einhorn’s hedge fund Greenlight Capital and other entities connected to him disclosed a 10% stake in Consol, according to a filing. That’s down from an earlier 11.8% stake.
Legendary Investor Bill Miller Compared Marijuana Legalization to the Early Days of Gambling and Shares the One Pot Stock He’s Betting on to Soar (Business Insider)
Legendary investor Bill Miller is making a big bet that more states will soon choose to legalize marijuana, likening it to the early days of gambling. He’s picked one cannabis company that he says will win in the nascent industry due to its growth prospects, management team, and strategy: Green Thumb Industries.
Wall Street Billionaire Leon Cooperman Warns Market Is ‘Not Going To End Well’ – But He Still Likes These 5 Investments (Forbes)
Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman is cautious about the stock market’s prospects in 2021. While the 77-year-old hedge fund titan still sees opportunities in the market, he warns of excessive speculation and signs of “euphoria.” Cooperman is especially worried about the long-term market outlook given rising U.S. debt levels and the federal deficit. “I think we’re borrowing from the future,” he says. “The Federal Reserve is forcing people out on the risk curve and driving stock prices (up) … it’s not going to end well.”
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D E Shaw Delivers Strong Returns in 2020 (Hedge Week)
DE Shaw’s flagship multi-strategy fund delivered net returns of +19.4 per cent for investors in 2020, according to a person familiar with the firm’s results. The DE Shaw Composite Fund (Composite), the firm’s largest fund, launched in 2001 and provides investors with exposure to the broadest array of the firm’s absolute return strategies. Last year’s returns, in what, for many, was a hugely volatile period, build on 2019’s net annualised return of +10.4 per cent.
Blackstone Hires Former Brown Endowment Chief as Hedge-Fund Unit Co-Head (The Wall Street Journal)
Blackstone Group Inc. has hired Joe Dowling, the former chief executive of Brown University’s endowment, as co-head of its $78 billion hedge-fund business. Mr. Dowling will join John McCormick in leading the business. Mr. McCormick has led Blackstone’s hedge-fund unit since January 2018. Mr. Dowling will focus on investing and Mr. McCormick on its business and investor functions.
Chris Rokos’s Macro Hedge Fund Surges 44% in Best Year Ever (Bloomberg)
Chris Rokos’s hedge fund racked up its best year since the billionaire investor started his own macro trading firm more than five years ago, joining a string of peers who posted record gains in 2020. His $14.5 billion macro fund soared 44% as the pandemic upended markets, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The London-based fund’s previous best year was in 2016, when it rose 20%.
Was Warren Buffett Right About Quant Hedge Funds? (Forbes)
The last several years have been difficult for hedge funds, although November was their best month in over ten years. Despite that, they still under-performed major indices. Data from Eurekahedge reveals that hedge funds, in general, were up 4.49% on an equal-weighted basis and 3.51% on an asset-weighted basis, with long/ short equity funds leading the way. Actively managed funds beat quants: Actively managed hedge funds beat quant funds in 2020. Quant funds have dominated actively managed funds for years, but human stock pickers won the year in 2020, driven by tech stocks preferences and a flood of stimulus money from central banks.
Patron Capital Raises $1bn for Fund VI to Target Distressed Real Estate Assets (Opalesque.com)
Patron Capital, the pan-European institutional investor focused on property-backed investments, has closed its most recent fund, raising EUR 844 million ($1.038 billion), including approximately €128 million ($157 million) of co-investment capital for Patron Capital VI. The Fund has the mandate to invest opportunistically targeting distressed and undervalued real estate investment opportunities across Western Europe.
Trader Charged With Ex-Goldman Banker Fights Extradition (Bloomberg)
A securities trader fighting extradition on U.S. insider-trading charges told a London court that British prosecutors dropped their own investigation because there was “insufficient evidence.” Joseph El Khouri, who holds dual Lebanese-British citizenship, was charged by U.S. authorities with making almost $2 million trading on inside information.
What Did This CEO Just Do with Personal Shares of Hooker Furniture (NASDAQ: HOFT)? (Analyst Ratings)
Today, the CEO of Hooker Furniture (HOFT), Paul Toms, sold shares of HOFT for $467.3K. Following Paul Toms’ last HOFT Sell transaction on June 18, 2019, the stock climbed by 13.3%. This is Toms’ first Sell trade following 3 Buy transactions. The company has a one-year high of $36.49 and a one-year low of $12.30. HOFT’s market cap is $386 million and the company has a P/E ratio of -31.30. Currently, Hooker Furniture has an average volume of 12.72K.
Masimo Corp (MASI) CEO and Chairman of the Board Joe E Kiani Sold $17.8 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO and Chairman of the Board of Masimo Corp., Joe E Kiani, sold 63,274 shares of MASI on 01/11/2021 at an average price of $281.67 a share. The total sale was $17.8 million. Masimo Corp is a medical technology company. The company develops, manufactures, and markets noninvasive monitoring technologies. Its product includes noninvasive blood constituent and brain and breath monitoring.
