Hedge Fund Bear Horseman Mulls Utilities Profits Squeeze as Gas Futures Surge (Hedge Week)
Future rises in the cost of natural gas following the recent oil price crash may squeeze utility companies’ profits, with US names potentially proving a lucrative short bet for hedge funds. Horseman Capital Management, the London-based contrarian long/short manager led by Russell Clark, believes that US power companies – which have steadily shifted from coal to natural gas as a result of cheaper prices since 2008 – may suffer from any imminent reversal. US natural gas futures, in steady decline since their 2008 high, recently rose following last month’s oil price crash.
Starboard Ends eBay Proxy Fight After eBay Hires New CEO (CNBC)
Starboard Value is backing away from its plan to install four new directors on eBay’s board following the hire of Jamie Iannone as the new CEO of the e-commerce company earlier this week. The activist hedge fund pulled its nomination of director candidates for election at eBay’s annual shareholder meeting in June, according to a joint statement issued with eBay on Thursday. EBay said it expects to name a new director to its board in the next few months, and will consider the people Starboard nominated.
Janus Henderson Hedge Fund Resumes Shorting Stocks After Rebound (Bloomberg)
A Janus Henderson hedge fund manager who has beaten most peers during this year’s market turmoil is resuming short-selling positions in a number of U.S. stocks amid concerns the market’s snap-back has been overdone. Luke Newman said his long-short equity fund has started to bet again on declines in U.S. sectors such as travel and hotels, following a brisk rebound on Wall Street. Late last month, the London-based fund manager covered some of his short positions following a raft of measures unveiled by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the government to combat the economic impact from the pandemic.
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CARN Capital Turns to Long-Only Investing (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Norwegian asset manager CARN Capital, which manages long/short fundamental equity fund CARN Long Short, plans to launch a long-only equity fund focused on the Nordic mid-cap space before the summer. “Due to increased interest from our investor base, we are launching a long-only fund that provides investors the opportunity to get full exposure to the Nordic stock market,” announces founding partner and portfolio manager Christer Bjørndal. Managed by Christer Bjørndal, founding partner Andreas Bomann-Larsen, senior analyst Harald Havnen and sustainability analyst Jon Audun Kvalbein, CARN Long Short is a long/short fundamental equity fund that invests in sustainable Nordic medium-sized public companies. On the long side, the investment team predominantly seeks to invest in companies with strong economic characteristics and “a sustainable business model that aligns with solving the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Hedge Fund Elliott Says Stocks Could Fall 50% from February Highs (CNBC)
Billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Management said global stocks could tumble more – ultimately losing half of their value from February’s high – as the world braces for the deepest recession since the 1930s-era Great Depression, according to a letter sent to clients on Wednesday and reviewed by Reuters. The New York-based hedge fund firm, which controls $40.4 billion in assets and whose views on markets and economics are closely watched by investors, wrote that the sharp market decline seen between late February and late March “provided a heavy bookend to a dozen years of basically nonstop positive returns in global stocks, bonds and real estate.“ And the rout is likely not yet over.
Warren Buffett will ‘let everybody know’ once he invests the bulk of Berkshire Hathaway’s $128 billion cash pile, Bill Ackman says (Business Insider)
After bailing out distressed companies and penning columns to calm investors during the 2008 financial crisis, Warren Buffett has kept a low profile so far during the market’s coronavirus driven meltdown in 2020. The billionaire boss of Berkshire Hathaway might be busy plowing a big chunk of the conglomerate’s $128 billion cash pile into stocks, and keeping quiet to avoid spiking prices, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman told Vanity Fair. “After he invests that $100 billion and change,” the Pershing Square chief told the magazine, “he’ll let everybody know.”
Lagardere may get help from allies in fight with Amber Capital (Reuters)
PARIS (Reuters) – Lagardere (LAGA.PA) shares rose as much as 12% on Thursday after Les Echos reported the French multimedia conglomerate could get help from French tycoon Vincent Bollore and Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, who heads finance group Fimalac, in its fight with Amber Capital. For more than four years, the activist hedge fund has been criticising the management and stock market performance of Lagardere, which has publishing, travel retail and media businesses.
Hedge Funds See USD8.1bn in Outflows in February (Hedge Week)
The hedge fund industry returned to net outflows in February with USD8.1 billion in redemptions, a reversal from January’s USD21.2 billion in inflows. February’s redemptions represented 0.2 per cent of industry assets, according to the Barclay Fund Flow Indicator published by BarclayHedge, a division of Backstop Solutions. A February trading loss of USD57.9 billion brought total hedge fund industry assets to nearly USD3.21 trillion as February ended, down from USD3.26 trillion at the end of January.
Big-Name Credit Funds Like Canyon Partners, Angelo Gordon, and CQS Got Smacked in March, But Some Specialized Credit Investors are Set to Rake in Cash as the Chaos Presents Big Opportunities (Business Insider)
March was a month of margin calls, crashing markets, and turmoil for many credit hedge funds. Big-name managers like Canyon Partners and CQS lost 20% and 30% for the month, respectively, while Angelo Gordon sued RBC over the bank’s seizure of commercial-mortgage-backed securities that had tumbled as the coronavirus forced many brick-and-mortar retailers to close their doors. Bloomberg first reported the news of the losses of Canyon Partners and CQS. A report from the Wall Street notes that Gordon’s AG Mortgage Value Partners fund was down 31% in March.
Light Street’s Post-Pandemic Strategy (Institutional Investor)
Tiger Cub Light Street Capital laid out its strategy for navigating markets ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, telling clients in its first-quarter letter that it is “maintaining a highly liquid portfolio” in the face of market uncertainty.
Thursday 4/16 Insider Buying Report: SAMG, RUBY (Nasdaq.com)
On Wednesday, Silvercrest Asset Management Group’s Managing Director, John Allen Gray, made a $99,987 purchase of SAMG, buying 10,475 shares at a cost of $9.55 a piece. Bargain hunters are able to grab SAMG even cheaper than Gray did, with shares trading as low as $8.57 in trading on Thursday — that’s 10.2% under Gray’s purchase price. Silvercrest Asset Management Group is trading off about 0.8% on the day Thursday. This buy marks the first one filed by Gray in the past year. And at Rubius Therapeutics, there was insider buying on Tuesday, by CEO and President Pablo J. Cagnoni who bought 21,000 shares at a cost of $4.70 each, for a trade totaling $98,694. Rubius Therapeutics is trading up about 5.4% on the day Thursday.
The EVP, Chief Legal Officer of Factset Research (NYSE: FDS) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Today, the EVP, Chief Legal Officer of Factset Research (FDS), Rachel Rebecca Stern, bought shares of FDS for $601K. Following Rachel Rebecca Stern’s last FDS Buy transaction on October 12, 2016, the stock climbed by 129.1%. This is Stern’s first Buy trade following 10 Sell transactions. Based on Factset Research’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending February 29, the company posted quarterly revenue of $370 million and quarterly net profit of $88.69 million.
Okta Inc (OKTA) CFO William E Losch Sold $4 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CFO of Okta Inc., William E Losch, sold 30,000 shares of OKTA on 04/13/2020 at an average price of $133.21 a share. The total sale was $4 million. Okta Inc is an identity and access management company. Its products include Universal Directory,Single Sign-On, Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication, Lifecycle Management, Mobility Management, and API Access Management. Okta Inc has a market cap of $17.49 billion; its shares were traded at around $142.47 with and P/S ratio of 28.57. GuruFocus has detected 1 severe warning sign with Okta Inc.
French Insider-Trading Case Near Collapse on Privacy Ruling (Bloomberg)
(Bloomberg) — France’s biggest insider-trading case may collapse after a court questioned whether evidence used to wiretap the burner phone of a man passing confidential tips from bankers to traders was obtained illegally. The country’s top court said earlier this month that investigators at the Autorité des Marchés Financiers didn’t obtain proper authorization before requesting phone records for the traders at the heart of the probe. But rather than throwing the case out, the judges referred the matter to the European Union Court of Justice to decide whether the failings can be overlooked.
INSIGHT: Senator’s Insider Trading Allegations Can Be Proved (Bloomber Law)
Proving that Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) engaged in insider trading when he traded stocks after a classified Senate briefing will not be difficult if the briefing contained material nonpublic information, writes former DOJ prosecutor Paul Tuchmann, now a partner with Wiggin and Dana. He looks to a novel Second Circuit decision and calls on Congress and the SEC to further clarify the rules. One day after receiving a classified briefing on the impending effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) sold at least $628,000 in stock and avoided significant losses when the value of those stocks then plunged as the pandemic spread to the U.S. Some outraged observers have called for him to be punished for violating the STOCK Act, which was intended to prevent members of Congress from engaging in insider trading.
