Ackman Scores Big November On Fannie, Freddie Gains (The Wall Street Journal)
William Ackman sliced in half his losses for the year after a strong November at Pershing Square Capital Management LP. Mr. Ackman’s flagship private fund rose 9.6% in November and its international fund rose 9.8%, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Ackman’s flagship fund is still down 10.1% in 2016, the people said, on top of losses in 2015, largely due to Valeant Pharmaceuticals International’s sharp decline. Pershing Square Holdings, Mr. Ackman’s Amsterdam-listed fund, is down 13.5% for the year, up from a 22.5% decline through October. The public fund uses more leverage than the flagship fund.
Exclusive: Staff Drops At Hintze’s CQS As Hedge Funds Tighten Belts (Reuters)
Staff numbers at CQS, the hedge fund run by billionaire investor Michael Hintze, have fallen sharply, with the Australian saying rivals must adapt to a rapidly changing industry. Over the past 18 months, headcount at CQS has fallen by 18.5 percent, or roughly 50 people, a person familiar with the company told Reuters. After a tough 2015, all the main funds of CQS, which manages $12 billion, are now in the black. The industry, which is famed for its stellar returns and high fees, is generally under pressure due to heavy withdrawals this year. “The industry needs to adapt and we, as a business, are also doing so,” Hintze said in an email to Reuters. “We have streamlined the business and we are focused on delivering performance for investors,” he added. “We have an organization that is focused on targeting returns and growth.”
Hedge-Fund Firm Moore Capital Cuts Management Fee On Largest Fund (The Wall Street Journal)
Moore Capital Management, the hedge-fund firm run by billionaire Louis Bacon, has cut charges for investors in its biggest fund. The New York-based firm, one of the industry’s best-known with $14 billion in assets, said in a letter to investors reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that it would cut the management fee on its $7.5 billion Macro Managers fund to 2.5% from 3%. The move is “a reflection of our sensitivity to changes in the industry as a whole,” the firm said in the letter. The cut, which will come into effect from January, comes near the end of a tough year for the Macro Managers fund. After large losses in January and February, the fund is down 3.8% in the first 10 months of the year.
Highland Capital Seeks To Unmask Author Of ‘Defamatory’ Post On Dealbreaker (Reuters)
Highland Capital Management LP on Thursday asked a New York state judge to order the operator of Dealbreaker.com to disclose information that could help it identify whoever posted a comment that the hedge fund firm considered “defamatory.” According to a public court filing, a person using the pseudonym “Low”land Realist on Nov. 2 posted a comment on the Dealbreaker website, which is run by Breaking Media Inc, that appeared to implicate the Dallas-based firm founded by James Dondero and Mark Okada in criminal behavior. In response to another post that said “Dealing with idiot investors is hard man,” “Low”land Realist wrote: “Especially ones that get tired of having their money stolen from them … well, Highland will just have to find some new suckers, to quote PT Barnum, who aren’t smart enough to do a Google search about their tried and true criminal behavior,” the filing said.
Tiger-Backed Hedge Fund Firm Tyrian To Close, Source Says (Reuters)
Tyrian Investments LP, the stock-focused hedge fund manager backed by Julian Robertson‘s Tiger Management LLC, is shutting down, according to a person familiar with the situation. New York-based Tyrian was founded in January 2010 by Orlando Muyshondt with so-called “seed” capital from Tiger, which is famous for backing promising hedge fund managers. Muyshondt did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tiger declined to comment. Tyrian managed $535.4 million in so-called regulatory assets as measured by the Securities and Exchange Commission at Dec. 31, 2015, according to a public disclosure. Such filings can exaggerate the actual capital managed because of leverage and other factors.
Two Sigma Unleashes 730,000 Data Scientists In Algo Contest (Bloomberg)
How do you tap the savvy of 730,000 data scientists for financial markets? Offer them $100,000 in prize money and a chance to impress one of the most successful hedge funds in the world. That’s what $38 billion Two Sigma is doing with its new partner Kaggle, a community of data scientists who collaborate and compete in writing machine-learning algorithms. In a contest starting Thursday at noon, Kaggle’s quants will have three months to create a predictive trading model from four gigabytes of financial data provided by Two Sigma. Cash prizes go to the seven best performers.
How A Boring Morgan Stanley Made ValueAct Capital $650 Million Since The Summer (Forbes)
Gone are the days when the trading desks at Morgan Stanley made multi-billion dollar bets on the market that could pay off big, or fail spectacularly. Also gone from the investment bank are some money minting quantitative traders who’ve since become Wall Street powerhouses in their own right. But a somewhat boring and safer post-crisis iteration of Morgan Stanley is beginning to pay off in a major way for one of Wall Street’s savviest investors. This spring and summer, activist hedge fund ValueAct Capital bet over $1 billion on Morgan Stanley and has seen its holding rise roughly 60%, or $650 million, in a matter of months as stock-pickers rush back into the banking sector in the wake of the election.
Hedge Funds Trim Bullish Bets On U.S. Crude Ahead Of OPEC Deal (Reuters)
Hedge funds and money managers scaled back their bullish bets on U.S. crude oil in the days ahead of a landmark deal by the world’s top crude exporters to cut production and rein in a global glut, data showed on Friday. The speculator group cut its combined futures and options position in New York and London by 2,418 contracts to 189,677 during in the week to Nov. 29, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said. That cut was the first in three weeks. Gross long positions in NYMEX crude oil futures and options fell by 16,337 contracts to 335,219 lots. However, some traders also unwound their short positions, data showed. Gross short positions, representing bearish bets, fell by 17,099 to 146,133 lots.
