One Hedge Fund Is Up 223% This Year Thanks to a Big Bet Against Tech Stocks (The Wall Street Journal)
Coltrane Asset Management reaped profits on a two-year short of tech and growth companies. In late 2020, Mandeep Manku made a big contrarian bet. His hedge fund, Coltrane Asset Management, had already been hit hard when markets plunged because of Covid-19. He decided to swing Coltrane’s portfolio from favoring cheap European companies to betting against tech and other fast-growing companies in the U.S. Markets with so many stocks trading at more than 10 times their revenues, with fervor concentrated in a few sectors, “always end poorly for investors,” Coltrane told clients in a September 2020 presentation.
Activist Fund Bluebell Targets Board Changes at Richemont (Reuters)
ZURICH, July 19 (Reuters) – Activist fund manager Bluebell Capital Partners is seeking changes to the board at Richemont (CFR.S), Richemont said on Tuesday, Bluebell’s first salvo against the Swiss luxury group that makes Cartier jewellery and IWC watches. London-based Bluebell, with around 250 million euros ($255.98 million) in assets, grabbed the spotlight last year when its campaign at French group Danone (DANO.PA) led to a management overhaul.
Novogratz Says He Was ‘Darn Wrong’ on Crypto Leverage Risks (Bloomberg)
Mike Novogratz, the billionaire investor who once called himself the “Forrest Gump of Bitcoin,” said the recent turbulence in the cryptocurrency industry is a “full-fledged credit crisis” and acknowledged that he was “darn wrong” about the magnitude of the leverage in the system. “What I don’t think people expected was the magnitude of losses that would show up in professional institutions’ balance sheets and that caused the daisy chain of events,” Novogratz said at the Bloomberg Crypto Summit Tuesday. “It turned into a full fledged credit crisis with complete liquidation and huge damage on confidence in the space.”
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Hedge Funds Warn SEC Dealer Rule is ‘Unenforceable’ (Risk.net)
US hedge funds are alarmed that they could be inadvertently hit by two proposed rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission that ostensibly seem to be targeted at non-bank market-makers. “We have had a number of enquiries from our larger clients in the leveraged relative value hedge fund community who are concerned about getting swept in with both standards,” says a fixed income trading executive at a large US investment bank.
Polen Taps Brigade Capital CEO as President of Firm (Pensions&Investments)
Karl Dasher was named president of money manager Polen Capital Management. It is a new position, a spokeswoman said in an email. Mr. Dasher, who started July 1, focuses on investment team administration and development, along with expanding the Boca Raton, Fla.-based manager’s credit platform. Mr. Dasher was previously CEO of Brigade Capital Management. Officials there could not be immediately reached for further information.
Buffett Accumulates More of Occidental Petroleum. What does Wall Street Say? (TipRanks)
Legendary investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) continues to ramp up its stake in oil and gas giant Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY). As per TipRanks Insider Trading Tool, in an SEC filing, Berkshire disclosed its purchase of over 1.94 million additional shares of Occidental in multiple transactions between July 14 and July 16. These transactions were made at prices ranging from $56.1425 to $59.6733, for an aggregate price of $112.1 million. While the Oracle of Omaha is clearly betting on the oil major, Wall Street analysts seem to be cautiously optimistic on Occidental stock.
Genesis Lent $2.4 Billion to Hedge Fund Three Arrows Capital (The Wall Street Journal)
Digital Currency Group Inc., the cryptocurrency conglomerate that owns Genesis Global Trading Inc., is the biggest creditor of the beleaguered hedge fund Three Arrows Capital Ltd., according to court documents compiled by Three Arrows’s liquidator. DCG’s Genesis Asia Pacific Ltd. lent Three Arrows $2.4 billion, the court document said. The hedge fund put down the equivalent of $1.2 billion in crypto and other collateral as of last month.
Scaramucci Halts Withdrawals in a Fund After Stock, Crypto Swoon (Bloomberg)
Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital suspended redemptions in one of its funds after sharp declines in stocks and cryptocurrencies, according to people familiar with the decision. The Legion Strategies fund suspended redemptions because private companies, which are harder to sell, now make up about 20% of the portfolio, one of the people said. The fund is one of Skybridge’s smaller offerings, farming out most of its roughly $230 million of assets to hedge fund managers.
Tuesday 7/19 Insider Buying Report: ET, CMTL (Nasdaq.com)
At Energy Transfer, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Friday, Director Richard D. Brannon bought 137,680 shares of ET, for a cost of $9.69 each, for a total investment of $1.33M. So far Brannon is in the green, up about 5.9% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $10.27. Energy Transfer is trading up about 1.4% on the day Tuesday. Before this latest buy, Brannon purchased ET on 2 other occasions during the past year, for a total investment of $632,465 at an average of $9.23 per share. And at Comtech Telecommunications , there was insider buying on Monday, by Chief Financial Officer Michael Bondi who bought 4,000 shares at a cost of $9.33 each, for a total investment of $37,320.
$1.7 Million Bet On This Biotechnology Stock? 3 Penny Stocks Insiders Are Buying (Benzinga)
BitNile: The Trade: BitNile Holdings, Inc. (NILE) Executive Chairman Milton C. Ault III acquired a total of 150,000 shares at an average price of $0.33. To acquire these shares, it cost around $49.01 thousand. ESSA Pharma: The Trade: ESSA Pharma Inc. (EPIX) 10% owner BB Biotech AG acquired a total of 588,869 shares at an average price of $2.93. The insider spent around $1.73 million to buy those shares.
