Hedge fund gurus show bear stance during Sohn conference, SALT conference (Opalesque)
Hedge fund industry leaders gathered in Las Vegas for Skybridge’s SALT conference this week, during which Ingrid Pierce of Walkers law firm talked to Opalesque about hedge fund launch trends; hedge fund manager Josh Birnbaum said he believes in a housing recovery, and that the macro trade today is not as good as it was. Stanley Druckenmiller said the supply and demand situation in commodities is deadly and recommended shorting “commodity currencies” during the Sohn conference in New York, BusinessInsider reported; many of the investment gurus speaking at the conference warned of tougher times ahead; energy stocks came up as top ideas several times; and David Einhorn advised his fellow investors to “do your own homework” (it was reported elsewhere that Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital had increased its exposure in Apple, and had closed its longstanding “short” position in bond insurer MBIA Inc. (NYSE:MBI)).
Roman debunks gold myth (eFinancialNews)
Roman, who took over from Peter Clarke at the helm of Europe’s largest listed hedge fund manager in February, took the opportunity to talk about why he thinks the price of gold should be $1,000 per ounce. The precious metal is currently trading at around $1,465 per ounce. Roman, a keen wine collector, used a wine analogy to debunk the myth that gold is very cheap. He said that under the formula for the equilibrium price of gold, which is money supply divided by total stock of gold in the world, the equilibrium price of gold is $10,000 per ounce. Applying the same calculation to Lafite Rothschild, Roman calculates that a bottle of Lafite Rothschild should be worth $900,000 a bottle, “which makes absolutely no sense”, he said.
Salt provides party backdrop to thorny capital-raising (AsianInvestor)
“If you like money, put your hands in the air!” bellowed a singer from the stage at the poolside party for Salt Las Vegas. Of the hundreds of hedge fund industry delegates attending the conference’s Latin-themed gala dinner, not a single hand went up. Possibly it was out of good taste, or because they were holding a drink in one hand and a freshly-rolled Cuban cigar in the other. One delegate was seen stirring his drink with an unlit cigar.
Rumours rife US billionaire George Soros is shorting the Aussie dollar (Malaysia-Chronicle)
Speculation was rife that Hungarian-American business magnate George Soros, known as the man who broke the Bank of England, was planning the raid on our currency. A large number of trades shorting the dollar totalling $US1 billion were placed via Hong Kong and Singapore by the business magnate’s Soros Fund Management, according to ValueWalk. One Sydney-based FX trader told the website someone has picked a mark around $US1.0270 and seemed to be betting on a rate cut.
Master of doom Marc Faber is feeling gloomy about Canada (TheGlobeAndMail)
Marc Faber, editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, was late to arrive to our Tuesday live discussion at Inside the Market alongside David Rosenberg. But we posed some of the questions you left for him in a later telephone conversation. Before we did, however, we couldn’t resist asking him about his views on Canada. Not surprisingly, the famed economist known for his contrarian and often pessimistic bent didn’t exactly offer an uplifting view. “I think Canada is a case where you have huge leverage in the private sector and where the economy is slowing down, where you have a strong currency and where the price levels are now relatively high,” Dr. Faber told us from Thailand.
