Warren Buffett, Howard Marks, Ray Dalio: What Top Investors are Saying About the Stock Market (CNBC)
The stock markets have been seesawing and many experts are as flummoxed. Here’s what leading investors Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio, and Howard Marks have to say. The coronavirus pandemic has short-circuited the markets for the past several months, causing both huge crashes and monster rallies. And the U.S. is still “not in total control” of the outbreak, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a White House health advisor, recently told a Senate panel. As cases have surged in recent weeks, some states have been forced to bring back business restrictions and lockdowns. Suffice it to say, it’s incredibly difficult to know what’s going to happen next, and it can be even more difficult to try and plan your financial or investing moves as a result. Even many experts are having a hard time coming to grips with what’s happening in the markets.
Point72 Nabs Goldman’s Repo Trading Head to Build Macro Unit (Bloomberg)
Alex Blanchard, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s head of repo trading, is set to join billionaire Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management — the second defection to the money manager to emerge in a matter of weeks. Blanchard will join the hedge fund as a portfolio manager in its macro trading team later this year. A spokeswoman for Stamford, Connecticut-based Point72 confirmed the hire on Friday.
LEAKED MEMO: Anthony Scaramucci Mourns His Relationship with $2.2 Trillion Merrill Lynch After it Downgraded SkyBridge’s Main Fund (Business Insider)
SkyBridge founder Anthony Scaramucci sent a strongly-worded memo to Andy Sieg, the president of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, on Thursday after the company downgraded its fund of hedge funds. SkyBridge was hit with redemption requests after its fund suffered a 24.7% loss in March. Scaramucci said Merrill Lynch erred in a recent due diligence report and that it inaccurately told its advisers that SkyBridge lied.
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Angelo Gordon Surges to $1.5bn Hard Cap for Third Europe Property Fund (Opalesque.com)
US-based alternative investment firm Angelo, Gordon & Co. has hauled in more than $1.5 billion in commitments for its latest European real estate fund, exceeding the target and hitting the fund’s hard cap. The $35 billion privately held limited partnership, which focuses on credit and real estate, exceeded the $1.2 billion target for the AG Europe Realty Fund III. Angelo Gordon said the fund will target assets, across all property types, that are located in the UK and major markets in Western Europe and the Nordics. The Fund received strong backing from existing Angelo Gordon investors and welcomed several new global institutional investors, said a press release.
Paulson Joins the ‘Going Private’ Trend as Hedge Fund Industry’s Changing of the Guard Accelerates (Hedge Week)
The news that John Paulson, the executor of ‘The Greatest Trade Ever’, is joining the growing ranks of famed hedge fund managers returning investor capital and going private, seems like a defining moment at a time when the world as we knew it is experiencing such widespread, seismic change. Paulson joins a celebrated club – whose members already include such luminaries as George Soros, Carl Icahn, Stanley Druckenmiller, Louis Bacon, Leon Cooperman and Mike Platt – of individuals who stamped their mark on the hedge fund industry and helped to define its spirit and style, but who ultimately came to conclude that running money for external investors had more cons than pros.
Fundies vs. Quants (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – In finance, we too often like to think in buckets. Assets are classified as either growth or value, investment products as either passive or active, research processes as top-down or bottom-up, and investment approaches as either systematic or discretionary. The latter will concern us for the purpose of this article. Alternatives manager AQR Capital Management attempts to explain the two approaches as follows, “… systematic (commonly associated with the term ‘quant’) generally applies a more repeatable and data driven approach, relying on computers to identify investment opportunities across many securities; in contrast, a discretionary approach involves in-depth analysis across a smaller number of securities and relies more on information that is not always easily codified.”
‘Capital Markets are Not Free’: Billionaire Investor Ray Dalio Says the Fed is Boosting Asset Prices, Valuation Metrics Don’t Apply, and the US Dollar is at Risk (Business Insider)
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio warned that the Federal Reserve is artificially inflating markets, normal valuation metrics no longer apply, and the US dollar risks being displaced as the world’s reserve currency in a Bloomberg interview on Thursday. “The capital markets are not free markets allocating resources in the traditional ways,” said the co-chief of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund with $138 billion in assets at last count. “The economy and the markets are driven by the central banks in coordination with the central government,” Dalio continued.
Seattle Genetics Inc (SGEN) CFO Todd E Simpson Sold $1.9 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CFO of Seattle Genetics Inc., Todd E Simpson, sold 11,573 shares of SGEN on 07/01/2020 at an average price of $167.58 a share. The total sale was $1.9 million. Seattle Genetics Inc is a biotechnology company. The company is focused on development and commercialization of targeted therapies for the treatment of cancer.
The EVP & CFO of McCormick & Company (NYSE: MKC) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Today, the EVP & CFO of McCormick & Company (MKC), Michael R. Smith, sold shares of MKC for $1.51M. Following Michael R. Smith’s last MKC Sell transaction on July 08, 2019, the stock climbed by 21.6%. In addition to Michael R. Smith, 4 other MKC executives reported Sell trades in the last month. Based on McCormick & Company’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending May 31, the company posted quarterly revenue of $1.4 billion and quarterly net profit of $196 million.
Conagra Brands Inc (CAG) EVP Gen Counsel & Corp Secty Colleen Batcheler Sold $4 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
EVP Gen Counsel & Corp Secty of Conagra Brands Inc., Colleen Batcheler, sold 111,062 shares of CAG on 07/01/2020 at an average price of $36 a share. The total sale was $4 million. Conagra Brands Inc is in the business of trading and merchandising packaged food in a variety of categories and in various retail channels across frozen, refrigerated, and shelf-stable temperature classes in North America.
