Fidelity Drops Ken Fisher’s Investment Firm Over Comments (Reuters)
BOSTON (Reuters) – A Fidelity Investments spokesman said on Monday it has dropped Fisher Investments as a money manager over allegedly sexist comments the firm’s leader Kenneth Fisher made at a conference last week. Fisher had managed $500 million in the $8 billion Fidelity Strategic Advisers Small-Mid Cap Fund, (FNAPX.O) a mandate the Boston firm said last week was under review.
Sorry, Tom Steyer, Wrong Minimum-Wage Benchmark (Forbes)
During the October 15 Democratic presidential debate, CNN news anchor Erin Burnett posed a question to candidate Tom Steyer, the founder of hedge fund Farallon Capital: “Mr. Steyer, you are the lone billionaire on this stage. What’s your plan for closing the income gap?” In response, Steyer lamented that over the last 40 years, 90% of Americans have not had a pay raise. “If you took the minimum wage from 1980 and adjusted it for inflation, you get 11 bucks. It’s $7.25,” Steyer said. “If you included the productivity gains of American workers, it would be more than 20 bucks.”
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Why Ken Griffin could be Shopping Around a Piece of His Business (CrainsNewYork.com)
Ken Griffin‘s Citadel and Citadel Securities have been on a roll, even as the hedge fund industry shrinks and trading rivals stumble. Citadel’s hedge fund assets have grown to about $32 billion under management since a near collapse in 2008, and Citadel Securities has had strong profits. So why would Griffin consider selling part of his business? The hedge fund industry was rocked by the news recently that the Citadel CEO and founder had been in talks with asset management colossus Blackstone Group about one of its funds buying a minority stake in his businesses.
Ex-Soros Senior Analyst Yiannakas Plans Stocks Hedge Fund (Bloomberg)
Sof Yiannakas, a former senior analyst at billionaire George Soros’s family office, is setting up his own hedge fund to bet on European stocks. EOF Partners, a London-based long/short investment firm, plans to start trading in the first quarter of next year, according to an investor document seen by Bloomberg. No fundraising details were disclosed in the document because the project is still in the early stages. Yiannakas declined to comment.
Opinion: Here’s the Stock-market Trade this Hedge-fund Star is Most Excited About Right Now (Market Watch)
Larry Hite is a long-time successful hedge-fund manager who doesn’t believe he – or really anyone – can predict what the stock market (and other markets) will do next, or which seemingly successful companies will suddenly crash. (Just remember Enron, he says.) Nor does he care much for Wall Street’s standard buy-and-hold advice for small investors. Rather, the 78-year-old has become fabulously wealthy using computer programs to detect and follow price trends – and by following one simple rule: cutting his losses early. He founded Mint Investment Management Co., and the composite of funds achieved a compounded annual rate of return above 30% before fees during his 13-year run there. He now runs Hite Capital, a family wealth management firm.
Hedge Fund Performance Update: September 2019 (Preqin.com)
As the threat of a global downturn slightly eases, the Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark posted a return of +0.46% in September, recovering from the August return of -0.98% and pushing the 2019 YTD figure to +7.50%. All top-level strategies made modest gains, with credit strategies performing best (+0.79%). This factsheet presents the hedge fund performance benchmarks for September 2019. Plus, the 2019 YTD and 12-month return figures across all top-level strategies, structures, denominations and size classifications.
Sissener’s Broad Pathway to Alpha Generation (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Sissener Canopus ranks as one of the best-performing hedge funds in the Nordics, a feat achieved thanks to an opportunistic search for performance and an ingrained risk-reward mentality. Founded by Norwegian household name Jan Petter Sissener, Sissener Canopus is an absolute return long/short equity fund that has a global mandate with a Nordic focus. “We search investment opportunities globally, but first and foremost, we think we have an investment edge in the Nordic markets,” Sissener tells HedgeNordic. The Norwegian asset manager’s investment philosophy is based on the belief that informational advantage can lead to superior investment results over time.
DLT-focused Hedge Fund Terraform Capital Launches (Hedge Week)
The founding CEO of The Crypto Company, one of the first publicly traded companies investing in blockchain, has formed a specialised hedge fund to directly invest in businesses associated with distributed ledger technologies (DLT). Mike Poutre, a three-time CEO of publicly traded companies, and Ryan Fabian, a former cryptography specialist at the US Air Force Intelligence and the National Security Agency, have been appointed as General Partners at Terraform Capital LLC, a California-based hedge fund with traditional limited partner structure.
Hedge Fund Lansdowne Bets on Market Reversal in Major Portfolio Shakeup (CityAM.com)
Hedge fund Lansdowne Partners has reportedly undergone a major repositioning of its portfolio, betting that financial markets are nearing a reversal that will lead to falling bond prices and a slump in tech stocks. Lansdowne, one of Europe’s biggest hedge funds, is predicting a major overhaul of dominant market trends, the Financial Times reported. The firm now expects governments to issue more debt to fund increased spending, which could cause the price of bonds and some stocks to drop.
Hedge Fund Redemptions Continue in August as Industry Experiences $11.3 Billion in Outflows According to Backstop BarclayHedge (PRWeb.com)
The hedge fund redemption trend stretched to three straight months in August as the industry experienced $11.3 billion in outflows. August’s redemptions represented 0.4% of industry assets and were an increase from July’s $8.1 billion in industry outflows, according to the Barclay Fund Flow Indicator published by BarclayHedge, a division of Backstop Solutions. Coupled with monthly trading losses of $10.3 billion, hedge fund industry assets stood at more than $3.08 trillion as August ended, down from $3.12 trillion at the end of July.
Goldman’s Unwelcome Streak: A String of Insider Trading Charges (Bloomberg)
(Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has built itself into a global dealmaking force whose bankers are often stitching together the biggest and most sensitive corporate transactions. But a trio of charges in just the last 18 months has threatened to tarnish that standing. Bryan Cohen, a Goldman investment banker in New York, was arrested Friday over allegations of insider trading, court records show. It comes just months after another banker was sentenced to three months in prison for sharing illicit deal tips. And a third pleaded guilty last year to leaking information to a National Football League linebacker in exchange for tickets to games.
Notable Insider Buy In The Past Week: Assured Guaranty (Benzinga)
With the new earnings reporting season just started, the buy windows for many insiders are closed. One insider kept up a recent streak of purchases, however. Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO) 0.36% saw its chief investment officer add another 35,100 shares in the past week. At prices ranging from $45.25 to $46.52 a share, that totaled more than $1.61 million. That officer has added more than 129,000 shares to his stake so far this month. Assured Guaranty completed its acquisition of BlueMountain Capital Management earlier this month. Assured Guaranty shares were trading at $46.83 each on last look, above the top of the latest purchase price range.
Chris Collins’ Guilty Plea Fails to Ignite Congressional Reform Efforts (The Buffalo News)
WASHINGTON – Chris Collins’ guilty plea and resignation from Congress haven’t exactly led to a wave of reform sweeping across Capitol Hill. Instead, efforts aimed at preventing congressional wrongdoing remain exactly where they were before Collins left Congress on Oct. 1. They’re nowhere in sight. The House Ethics Committee abandoned its probe of Collins on the day he resigned, but remains quietly working on a separate reform package. Meanwhile, a broad reform bill lays on its deathbed in the Senate.
Insider Trading: Fidelity Bank Bans Directors, Relatives From Trading Shares (Tribune Online)
FIDELITY Bank PLC has directed its directors, managers and other high-ranking members of staff of the bank, as well as their related persons to stop the trading of the company’s equities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The directive was necessitated to avoid insider trading because of the company’s vital information at their disposal, which they may use to affect the price of the stock at the exchange to the disadvantage of others.
A Director at Mitcham Industries (NASDAQ: MIND) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Today, a Director at Mitcham Industries (MIND), Peter Blum, bought shares of MIND for $29.48K. This recent transaction increases Peter Blum’s holding in the company by 2.24% to a total of $1.3 million. Based on Mitcham Industries’ latest earnings report for the quarter ending July 31, the company posted quarterly revenue of $8.9 million and GAAP net loss of $3.14 million.
