Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Ray Dalio Is Back, All Weather Fund Up 11% (Forbes)
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio is the king of the rich hedge fund industry. He runs the biggest hedge fund outfit in the world, Bridgewater Associates, a firm with $150 billion under management that Dalio founded in 1975. So far, Dalio’s having a pretty good year following a challenging two-year stretch. Dalio’s key All Weather Fund has returned 11.16% this year through June, according to an investment report reviewed by Forbes. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index returned 6.05% over the same time period. The All Weather fund is up 17.01% in the last 12 months.
Playing hedge funds with public money (Economist)
LISTEN here, voters, I’ve got a great deal for you. I’m sure you are all aware of the legendary financial acumen of public officials. So here is the deal. We are going to go into the business of hedge funds. My team and I are going to borrow money and invest it in the markets. The profits will roll in. It seems unlikely that this pitch would appeal to much of the electorate. But in effect that is what they have agreed to in those states and cities that have issed pension obligation bonds (POBs). When I first heard of POBs, I could not quite believe they were allowed; this is not something that would be done in Britain. But as a new report from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College explains, POBs have been around for nearly 30 years.
Emerging-Market Specialist Plans Fund (HFAlert)
An emerging-market analyst whose resume includes stints at Brookside Capital and SAC Capital is setting up his own hedge fund operation. Tong Zhao recently founded Formic Management of New York with plans to launch a long/short equity fund by Oct. 1. The vehicle will invest in emerging-market stocks as well as global blue chips with “defining emerging-market drivers.” Zhao, who is chief investment officer, is assisted by research and operations chief Nicolas Walters. The two met about 10 years ago while studying at the University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently worked together at SAC. Zhao went on to take an analyst job at Brookside, a unit of Bain Capital, while Walters subsequently worked at Indus Capital and businesses controlled by Europe’s Rothschild family.
After Years of Stock Market Optimisim, Odey Turns Pessimistic (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
Odey Asset Management’s Crispin Odey has turned sharply bearish in recent months. The London-based hedge fund manager is now slightly net short in his flagship equity hedge fund after maintaining net exposure to the markets of between 80 percent and 120 percent since March 2009. “Recent moves in markets have highlighted how tired this bull market has got,” Odey Asset Management tells clients of the Odey European fund in its May report, obtained by Alpha.
This Forgotten Commodity Could Triple Your Money (Fool)
Over the past few months, a number of hedge funds have quietly accumulated massive positions in a forgotten part of the Canadian resource sector. According to industry insiders, a shortage of this essential commodity is almost inevitable. Many analysts project that prices will double or triple within two years. Now their bets are paying off. Supplies are beginning to tighten and investors who appreciate the scope of this opportunity could make triple-digit gains over the next 24 to 36 months. …Uranium stocks have been left for dead. Following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in 2011, a number of countries announced plans to cut or eliminate their nuclear power programs and uranium prices have been in the dumps ever since.
SEC will aggressively scrutinise firms taking advantage of JOBS Act (COOConnect)
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will rigorously scrutinise the internal workings and compliance standards at private funds taking advantage of the liberalised marketing and advertising rules as mandated under the JOBS Act. “The SEC was not thrilled at the prospect of private funds’ engaging in general solicitation. If you decide to engage in general solicitation, you should expect to be rigorously examined by the SEC staff. If a fund manager is going to rely on the Rule 506(c) safe harbour, then it must ensure that all its I’s are dotted and T’s crossed otherwise the SEC will be all over you,” said Cary Meer, partner at K&L Gates in Washington DC, speaking at the law firm’s ninth annual investment management conference in London.
Cramer: American Air reverses momentum stocks (CNBC)
Analyst’s Dim View of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Could Affect Share Price in the Coming Weeks (BenchmarkMonitor)
With rumors that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) will pre-release Windows 9 this fall, a number of fund managers have begun to bet that shares a poised to fall – closed at $ 41.78 on Tuesday, down 0.50 percent. According to hedge fund consultant Peter Cohen, ‘Microsoft is over-valued given its slow earnings growth, its challenge in competing against Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in the cloud and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and others in office software, and the near-impossible task of earning a return on its Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) investment.’
Evanston Launches Multi Strategy Hedge Fund (HedgeCo)
An Illinois-based hedge fund manager with around $4.9 billion AUM, is launching the Evanston Alternative Opportunities Fund. The new fund, launched by Evanston Capital Management started up on July 1, 2014. The Fund is available to U.S. accredited investors, including ERISA accounts, has an initial minimum investment of $50,000 and offers Form 1099 tax reporting. The new fund has strategic exposure to Long/Short Equity, Relative Value, Event Driven, and Global Asset Allocation.
The End of Preet Bharara’s Perfect Record on Insider Trading (BusinessWeek)
In a stunning, if not altogether unpredictable loss for U.S. prosecutors, a jury on Tuesday found Rengan Rajaratnam, the younger brother of convicted insider trader Raj Rajaratnam, not guilty of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The jury deliberated for only a few hours. Rengan was charged with conspiring with his brother to trade in two tech stocks, Clearwire Corporation (NASDAQ:CLWR) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD), based on illegal information that Raj had obtained. In a small twist of irony, it was a Securities and Exchange Commission examination of Rengan’s $80 million hedge fund, Sedna Capital, back in 2006 that helped trigger the government’s sweeping insider trading investigation involving the FBI in New York, prosecutors in Preet Bharara’s Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the SEC.
Hedge fund pushes to split CEO, chairman roles at Darden (OrlandoSentinel)
A hedge fund that invests in Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) hopes to persuade shareholders to call for splitting the roles of chief executive officer and chairman. Barington Capital Group, which controls a little more than 2 percent of Darden stock, has submitted the proposal for an investor vote at the company’s shareholder meeting Sept. 30. The vote would be nonbinding, meaning it would be up to the company to decide whether to follow the will of stockholders.
Marc Faber and Peter Schiff may be just what this rally needs (CNBC)
On CNBC’s “Futures Now,” “Dr. Doom” Marc Faber presented a dire assessment of a broad range of investments, from the American stock market to bonds and real estate, proclaiming that “it’s a colossal bubble in all asset prices, and eventually it will burst, and maybe it has begun to burst already.” The publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, who is now calling for a 30 percent crash in the S&P 500, put it even more succinctly at the very end of the interview Tuesday: “We’re all doomed! We’re all doomed!” That view was echoed by Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, though the gold bug is more concerned about a decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, which would help boost gold prices.
Boone Pickens: ‘I’m a patriotic American’ (NewsOK)
Six years after veteran energy executive Boone Pickens introduced the “Pickens Plan,” America still does not have a comprehensive national energy plan. Why, asks CBS News? Pickens has a one-word explanation: Washington. “You’ve got to change some things in Washington because what we’re doing is wasting a hell of a lot time,” Pickens told said in an interview that covered energy policy, OPEC and politics.
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