Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
Who dares wins
Everyone is interested in reading about someone making billions of dollars in profit, and the Wall Street Journal’s story about the Appaloosa fund making $7 bln of profit so far this year is certainly eye-catching.
Rather like London’s Crispin Odey, who earned a handy 30 mln stg this year, the fund, run by David Tepper, made its money buying bargain basement bank shares.
Whilst in Odey’s case it was Barclays, for Tepper it was Bank of America below $3 (now $15.35) and Citigroup preferred shares below $1.
For the skilful/lucky few, 2009 presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy assets at ridiculously low prices. For many others, it was a frustrating year of sitting on the sidelines in cash and waiting for the macroeconomic situation to get a little clearer.
ML note – hedgies sell equities
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch’s latest “Hedge Fund Monitor” note shows managers are aggressively selling equities and building a record net long position in 2-year Treasuries.
According to the note, hedge funds last week continued to decrease aggressively their net long position in S&P 500 futures and added to net shorts in the Russell 2000.
