One Hedge Fund that Bet Against GameStop is Closing its Doors After Taking Double-Digit Percent Losses from the Meme Stock’s Rally (Business Insider)
A London-based hedge fund that took a hit from betting against GameStop is shutting down after reviewing its business model, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. White Square Capital, which held about $440 million in assets at its peak, suffered double-digit percent losses from its GameStop short position. But the firm bounced back quickly, recovering a fair share of the losses, the FT said, citing a source close to the fund.
Ray Dalio Says Fed Can’t Tighten ‘Without Having Big, Negative Effect’ on Markets (Market Watch)
Ray Dalio, billionaire investor and founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, took note Monday at the topsy-turvy reaction across financial markets last week to the Federal Reserve’s signal that it could begin to lift rates sooner than investors had expected and that policy makers had started to discuss the eventual slowdown of its monthly asset purchases. The yield curve flattened violently, with short- and medium-dated yields rising sharply last week as long-term yields fell; the dollar soared and equities ultimately slid, though growth-oriented shares outperformed.
Jim Simons and Renaissance Technologies, The “Most Successful Hedge Fund in the World” (Transfin.in)
The “most successful” hedge fund in the world is one you may never even have heard of before. Renaissance Technologies was founded by 44-year-old mathematics professor Jim Simons in the 1980s. To predict (and beat) the market, Simons embraced cold, hard data analysis and algorithmic predictions. This approach – unconventional for his time – proved to be wildly lucrative, bringing quantitative investing to the mainstream and making Simons one of the richest men on the planet.
Pixabay/Public Domain
Capital Gazette Bought by Hedge Fund Alden Global Capital; Pittman Responds with Letter (Fox 5 Washington DC)
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund, has bought the Annapolis based Capital Gazette newspaper. The announcement was made on Tuesday by Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman who released an emotional open letter to the new owners. “We’ve heard that you are bad news, that you buy papers like ours, lay off staff, cut local news coverage, and squeeze out whatever profit you can,” Pittman wrote. “We worried when we heard you were buying our paper’s parent company, Tribune Publishing. We rejoiced when other investors stepped in with a competing offer, promising to preserve our paper and the Baltimore Sun under the oversight of a local nonprofit. But you won. That was a blow, but we’re not ready to give up.”
The Activist Investor That Beat Exxon Is Trying To Reinvent The Index Fund (Forbes)
Engine No. 1, the small activist investment firm that won a total of three seats on ExxonMobil’s board of directors earlier this month, is launching an exchange traded fund that aims to reshape the broad market index fund. Its Engine No. 1 Transform 500 ETF will mimic a broad market index fund at a low cost, while also giving investors a potentially powerful say in corporate governance. At an expense ratio of just five basis points annually, or 0.05%, Engine No. 1 will provide active corporate governance oversight on the constituent companies held in the ETF by a team of investors that just scored one the biggest proxy battle wins ever witnessed in Corporate America.
