Former Hedge Fund Billionaire Makes The Case For $20,000 Bitcoin Price By The End Of 2020 (Forbes)
Bitcoin has rocketed higher over the last few days, breaking months of inaction and sparking excitement among bitcoin investors. The bitcoin price, still about half its all-time high set in late 2017, rallied almost 20% in less than a week – peaking at just over $11,400 per bitcoin on Monday evening before falling back. Now, former hedge fund billionaire-turned crypto investor, Michael Novogratz, has said he expects the bitcoin price to hit $20,000 by the end of the year—fueled by a global “liquidity pump” and an influx of retail investors.
Sir Chris Hohn’s Foundation Must Pay £277m to Ex-Wife’s Charity (Telegraph.co.uk)
A charity set up by one of Britain’s richest men has been ordered by the Supreme Court to pay $360m (£277m) to his former wife’s philanthropic organisation. The UK’s highest court ruled that the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) cannot block the payment to a new charity set up by Jamie Cooper, the former wife of financier Sir Chris Hohn. The pair agreed to transfer the money to Big Win Philanthropy, a charity set up by Ms Cooper after their record-breaking divorce, in return for her resigning as a trustee of CIFF.
Jupiter Profit Plunges 50% as Covid Fears Drive Investor Exodus (FNLondon.com)
Jupiter Fund Management, the FTSE 250-listed asset manager, suffered a 50% drop in profits for the first six months of the year, the result of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis ravaging markets and jittery investors pulling money from its funds. Interim results for Jupiter show net revenues of £161.9m were down 15% compared to the first half of 2019, while pre-tax profits of £40.8m were down from £81.4m.
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Major Hedge Fund Sees Customers’ Personal Data Stolen by Hackers (YourMoney.com)
SEI is a fund administrator for Angelo Gordon, Pacific Investment Management Co., Centerbridge Partners, and several other money managers. The cyber incident was detected in May but only recently disclosed to SEI clients. According to the firm, an unidentified group of hackers compromised systems of M.J. Brunner Inc on 17 May. They stole discrete pieces of user information, including names and emails, as well as phone numbers and physical addresses. Jonathan Knudsen, senior security strategist at Synopsys, said: “The aftershocks from the SEI Investments compromise continue to ripple outward, causing heartburn, financial damage, and reputational damage in equal parts. How can we learn from this incident? Every organisation is a software organisation, regardless of underlying mission or purpose.
Hedge Funds Lift Off with 11.48% Returns in Q2 2020 (Opalesque.com)
Hedge funds returned 11.48% in Q2 2020, the highest gains since 2009, following losses of 10.63% in Q1, said Preqin. According to the report, hedge funds have broken even for H1 2020, with YTD returns hitting -0.37% as of the end of June. Hedge fund launches remain timid as the quarter saw just 59 funds launched, a decrease from Q1 2020 when 182 were incepted. While equity and credit strategies still accounted for the largest proportions of these, there was a significant uptick in the proportion of funds launched pursuing event-driven and niche strategies, reflecting investors’ appetite for approaches that have proven more resilient during the recent turmoil.
Hedge Fund Investors Ditch Misfiring Quant Trade Losing Billions (Bloomberg)
Quant strategies designed to zig when markets zag are getting thrashed by extreme stock swings in a year that should have proved their shining moment. These market-neutral funds keep lagging other alternative strategies, while Eurekahedge data this month showed they’re already reeling from $2 billion of outflows in 2020. Not only did they largely fail to live up to their promise in the historic equity selloff, the ferocious rebound is confounding their risk models with its unprecedented whiplash.
More Hedge Funds May Follow Polygon’s Lead with Short Bets Against Gold Miner Petropavlovsk (Hedge Week)
Hedge fund short sellers could soon be circling the troubled Russian gold miner Petropavlovsk, after Polygon Global Partners built a sizeable short bet in the London-listed company, which is facing major governance issues. Polygon has built a high conviction short in the FTSE 250 firm equating to more than 8 per cent of its total freefloat, according to new data from Ortex, the London-based equity analytics firm. London-listed Petropavlovsk, whose operations are focused in Russia, said on Tuesday that its half-year results will delayed after it has struggled to appoint an auditor.
Ex-RBC Trader Aims for Fund Launch (HFAlert.com)
The former head of RBC’s proprietary statistical-arbitrage trading desk is looking to launch his own fund in September. Tebogo Phiri is aiming to begin trading with at least $50 million from a select group of investors via his New York firm, qPULA Trading Management. Its fund, qPULA Stratus Fund, will focus at least initially on U.S. equities, but it plans to expand its investments eventually to other countries and asset classes. Once the vehicle launches, Phiri intends to take the time to develop a track record before marketing more broadly. Phiri had a contentious exit from RBC in 2016. That year, he filed an arbitration claim and a related lawsuit in New York, alleging the bank failed to live up to an agreement he claimed would allow him to take his track record and intellectual property — the data and trading code he used there — if he were to leave the bank under a certain condition.
Intuitive Surgical Inc (ISRG) Executive VP & CFO Marshall Mohr Sold $5.1 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Executive VP & CFO of Intuitive Surgical Inc., Marshall Mohr, sold 7,500 shares of ISRG on 07/27/2020 at an average price of $677.19 a share. The total sale was $5.1 million. Intuitive Surgical Inc designs, manufactures, markets da Vinci Surgical Systems, and related instruments. The da Vinci surgery, combines the benefits of minimally invasive surgery for patients with the ease of use, precision and dexterity of open surgery.
Wednesday 7/29 Insider Buying Report: INTC, CADE (Nasdaq.com)
At Intel, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Friday, CEO Robert Holmes Swan bought 8,021 shares of INTC, at a cost of $50.00 each, for a total investment of $401,050. Bargain hunters have the opportunity to buy INTC even cheaper than Swan did, with shares changing hands as low as $48.60 in trading on Wednesday — that’s 2.8% below Swan’s purchase price. Intel is trading off about 1.1% on the day Wednesday. Before this latest buy, Swan made one other buy in the past year, purchasing $498,953 shares at a cost of $45.70 each. And on Monday, CEO Paul B. Murphy Jr. bought $122,250 worth of Cadence Bancorporation, buying 15,000 shares at a cost of $8.15 each. Before this latest buy, Murphy Jr. made one other purchase in the past twelve months, buying $158,800 shares at a cost of $15.88 a piece. Cadence Bancorporation is trading up about 1.2% on the day Wednesday.
The Senior Vice-President & Corporate Secretary of FirstService (NASDAQ: FSV) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Today, the Senior Vice-President & Corporate Secretary of FirstService (FSV), Douglas G Cooke, sold shares of FSV for $1.57M. Following Douglas G Cooke’s last FSV Sell transaction on February 11, 2019, the stock climbed by 33.0%. Based on FirstService’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending March 31, the company posted quarterly revenue of $634 million and quarterly net profit of $5.29 million. In comparison, last year the company earned revenue of $574 million and had a GAAP net loss of $279 million. The company has a one-year high of $119.38 and a one-year low of $57.38. Currently, FirstService has an average volume of 28.49K.
Cadence Design Systems Inc (CDNS) Sr. VP & CFO John M Wall Sold $1.6 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Sr. VP & CFO of Cadence Design Systems Inc., John M Wall, sold 15,000 shares of CDNS on 07/27/2020 at an average price of $104.26 a share. The total sale was $1.6 million. Cadence Design Systems Inc develops system design enablement solutions that are used to design whole electronics systems, complex integrated circuits, and electronic devices. The firm provides maintenance services for its software, hardware, and others.
