Gammon Capital Up 449% Is Betting on New Wave of Market Turmoil (Bloomberg)
A New York hedge fund that’s gained 449% in this year’s pandemic roller-coaster is betting on a new wave of volatility in the event Congress fails to extend a key bank provision in any new stimulus bill. As time runs short on breaking the legislative impasse, Gammon Capital LLC has been loading up on bearish stock options to wager on the prospective market fallout.
US Hedge Fund Challenges LG Corporate Overhaul (Asia.Nikkei.com)
SEOUL — A U.S. hedge fund is challenging a plan by South Korea’s LG to spin off four affiliates through a new holding company for a relative of the Koo family, arguing that it will fail to create value for long-suffering minority shareholders. Whitebox Advisors, an LG minority shareholder, sent a letter to LG’s board on Tuesday asking South Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate to scrap its plan to spin off LG Hausys, LG MMA, Silicon Works and LG International & Pantos.
Hedge Funds That Don’t Actually Hedge Are Killing It This Year (Institutional Investor)
Light Street, Tiger Global are among many hedge fund firms whose long-only funds are outperforming. In a very volatile year marred by a bear market, several of the best performing funds managed by hedge fund firms have been ones that do not hedge – specifically, long-only funds.Many of them have overcame and erased a huge early sell-off and are now beating the major stock market…
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Hedge Fund Boss Banned and Fined £100k Over Manipulated Trades (Citywire.co.uk)
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned former hedge fund chief investment officer Corrado Abbattista and fined him £100,000 for market abuse. The regulator found Abbattista, formerly of Fenician Capital Management, guilty of creating a false impression of equity demand and supply which he did not intend to execute.
BNP Paribas Asset Management Launches Two Infrastructure Debt Funds (Opalesque.com)
BNP Paribas Asset Management has launched two infrastructure debt funds. BNP Paribas European Infrastructure Debt Fund II is targeting 500 million Euros and BNP Paribas European Junior Infrastructure Debt Fund I is targeting 300-500 million Euros. BNP Paribas European Infrastructure Debt Fund II will focus on the digital infrastructure and renewable energy sectors, among others. The strategy follows from BNP Paribas European Infrastructure Debt Fund I, which closed in 2017 on 474 million Euros.
Shares in Solutions30 Slide on Muddy Waters Short-Seller Report (Reuters)
PARIS (Reuters) – Shares in French-listed technology company Solutions30 slid on Tuesday, after hedge fund Muddy Waters issued a short-seller report citing corporate governance issues at the company – concerns the company has denied. Solutions30 shares were down by around 34% in early trading. Solutions30 issued a statement on Dec 14 in which the company said it had been the target of a destabilisation campaign using “malicious and disloyal methods.”
Adapting to Low Risk Premiums (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – The hunger for yield is growing, as yields and risk premiums are going down across the board. We are reaching what were once conceived as unthinkable levels while dealing with a pandemic from which the dire economic consequences are still to be fully seen. “This is also evident within our investment universe, in the mortgage bond market, where risk premiums – observable in the form of the yield pick-up compared to government bonds – are either close to or below their historic lows,” says Carsten Bach, CIO at Copenhagen-based CABA Capital. During the summer of 2017, Carsten Bach, Niels-Ulrik Mousten, and Mette Østerbye Vejen launched the fixed-income hedge fund CABA Hedge to harvest structural risk premiums from AAA-rated Scandinavian mortgage bonds.
How Global Macro Hedge Funds can Capitalise on the “Looming” Economic Normalisation (Hedge Week)
Global macro hedge funds from across the emerging market, systematic and discretionary spectrum may be well-placed to capitalise on prevailing equity valuations amid economic “normalisation”, Lyxor Asset Management strategists said this week. While discretionary global macro funds offer a tactical bias, which appears relevant “at the trough of the business cycle”, emerging market-focused macro managers benefit from stronger credit profiles of energy and metal exporters amid rising commodity prices.
Hedge-Fund Boss Ignites Swedish Race Debate With Complaint (Bloomberg)
Swedish social media lit up last month when a well known Black hedge-fund manager vented about discrimination, questioning the country’s prized egalitarian credentials. Sean George, 48, who grew up in the Caribbean before moving to Sweden at the age of 12, broke a two-year long silence on why he was forced to go solo with his fund in Stockholm in 2018. After decades of working overseas at firms like UBS Group AG, Bank of America Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG, he said he failed to get as much as an interview when he moved back to Stockholm.
With Fund Managers More Bullish Than Ever, It’s Time to Get Cautious, Says Bank of America (Barron’s)
Driven by optimism over Covid-19 vaccines, money managers are now the most bullish they have been all year, and piling into so-called “reopening” trades. That is according to Bank of America’s December fund-manager survey, which finds those managers have been buying consumer stocks, commodities and emerging markets, which 60% of managers say will be the best performers in 2021.
Mets’ New GM Excited by Cohen’s Title Expectations (Fox News)
Jared Porter knows his new boss with the Mets is counting on a championship. Pretty soon, too. That doesn’t bother him one bit. “Hearing comments like that motivates me,” Porter said Monday after being introduced as New York’s general manager. “It shows a strong commitment from ownership who wants to win, who wants to put a winner on the field for the fan base in New York, and I completely align with that. It excites me. I want those expectations.” In a news conference on Zoom that lasted nearly 50 minutes, Porter outlined his vision of emphasizing talent, flexibility, innovation and depth throughout a Mets organization in transformation under new owner Steve Cohen and president Sandy Alderson.
Tuesday 12/15 Insider Buying Report: MBIO, DK (Nasdaq.com)
At Mustang Bio, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Monday, Director Lindsay A. Rosenwald, M.D. bought 100,000 shares of MBIO, for a cost of $2.66 each, for a total investment of $266,000. Rosenwald, M.D. was up about 15.0% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with MBIO trading as high as $3.06 at last check today. Mustang Bio is trading up about 7.3% on the day Tuesday. This purchase marks the first one filed by Rosenwald, M.D. in the past twelve months. And at Delek US Holdings, there was insider buying on Thursday, by Director Richard J. Marcogliese who purchased 11,000 shares at a cost of $16.92 each, for a total investment of $186,142. Delek US Holdings is trading up about 1.9% on the day Tuesday. Investors have the opportunity to snag DK at a price even lower than Marcogliese did, with the stock trading as low as $15.88 in trading on Tuesday — that’s 6.2% under Marcogliese’s purchase price.
Roku Inc (ROKU) CFO Steve Louden Sold $24.1 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CFO of Roku Inc, Steve Louden, sold 77,542 shares of ROKU on 12/10/2020 at an average price of $310.44 a share. The total sale was $24.1 million. Roku Inc operates TV streaming platform in the United States. Its TV streaming platform allows users to discover and access a variety of movies and TV episodes, as well as live sports, music, news and more. Roku Inc has a market cap of $41.17 billion; its shares were traded at around $324.320000 with and P/S ratio of 26.31. GuruFocus has detected 2 severe warning signs with Roku Inc.
The Chairman of GW Pharma (NASDAQ: GWPH) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the Chairman of GW Pharma (GWPH), Geoffrey Guy, sold shares of GWPH for $7.86M. In addition to Geoffrey Guy, 2 other GWPH executives reported Sell trades in the last month. Based on GW Pharma’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending September 30, the company posted quarterly revenue of $137 million and GAAP net loss of -$12,188,000. In comparison, last year the company earned revenue of $90.97 million and had a GAAP net loss of $13.76 million. The company has a one-year high of $144.00 and a one-year low of $67.98. Currently, GW Pharma has an average volume of 60.62K.
SEC Awards More Than $300,000 to Whistleblower with Audit Responsibilities (HedgeCo.net)
HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced an award of more than $300,000 to a whistleblower whose high-quality information and continuing assistance significantly contributed to a successful enforcement action. The whistleblower became aware of the potential securities law violations in connection with audit-related responsibilities. Although individuals with audit or compliance responsibilities are generally not eligible for awards, a whistleblower who reasonably believes that an entity is engaging in conduct that would impede the investigation falls within one of the exceptions to that rule. Here, the whistleblower had a reasonable basis to believe that the entity would impede the Commission’s investigation. This is the fourth time the agency has paid a whistleblower with internal audit or compliance related responsibilities.
