Greenlight’s Einhorn Optimistic Twitter Deal with Musk will Close (Reuters)
Hedge fund manager David Einhorn, whose Greenlight Capital has had a long history with entrepreneur Elon Musk, in a letter on Friday said he expects Musk’s deal to buy Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N) will “close at or near the originally agreed upon price.” Einhorn told his investors in August that he had bought a stake in Twitter, and now said he believes the lawsuit in Delaware that could decide the fate of the deal “is going well for TWTR.” The hedge fund acquired a new stake in the social media company in July as Twitter sued to force Elon Musk to buy the company even as the billionaire entrepreneur said he had changed his mind about the deal.
Shorting Colombia’s Peso Is a Top Trade at Brazilian Hedge Funds (Bloomberg)
No currency has been harder hit than the Colombian peso over the past month, and Brazilian hedge funds are partly to blame. Trading desks in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are piling into short bets on the peso, wagers that not only pay off when the currency weakens but can also exert downward pressure. They see storm clouds gathering over their Andean neighbor, and predict the nation’s fiscal and current account deficits will leave it extra vulnerable to a global economic slowdown.
A Brief History of Activist Investors in Tech and the Role They Play (Tech Crunch)
On Tuesday, activist investor Starboard Value revealed a significant stake in Salesforce, sending the company’s stock climbing more than 7%. A hedge fund founded in 2002 by Jeffrey Smith and Mark Mitchell, Starboard has a history of affecting change at major companies, spurring the spinning off of media startup Patch from AOL in 2014 and the replacement of the entire board of directors at Darden Restaurants, the company that owns Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse.
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Institutions Keep Yanking Cash from Hedge Funds (The Wall Street Journal)
Investors have pulled back from their hedge-fund bets, despite the industry’s outperformance navigating this year’s volatility. Institutions yanked an estimated $26 billion from hedge funds in the third quarter, according to HFR, building on $27.5 billion outflows the prior quarter. An HFR index that weights hedge funds equally lost 1.1% in Q3, taking losses on the year to 6.7%. The biggest hedge funds did better. An index that gives more weight to larger firms gained 1.2% in Q3 and 3.3% so far in 2022. Both indexes are far above the S&P 500’s 22% losses on the year.
This Hedge Fund Made 35% on Its Twitter Bet — Now It’s Shorting GameStop and AMC’s ‘Absurd’ Valuations (Financial News)
Meme stocks are still over-valued, claims this short seller. In May, Bireme Capital took a roughly $10m position in Twitter. It wagered that Elon Musk would be forced to buy the social networking platform. That bet is now up 35% and the US-based hedge fund has now found another opportunity: Shorting meme stocks. “We have been shorting a bunch of stocks, including GameStop, AMC, and DWAC [Digital World…
Two Sigma Rolls Out Its Latest Offering (Institutional Investor)
With several of its existing funds solidly in the black this year, the quant giant has raised money for a new equity fund. Two Sigma has launched a new hedge fund. The quant giant and one of the world’s largest hedge fund firms has raised more than $518 million for Two Sigma Neptune Enhanced Fund, according to a regulatory filing.
