Hedge fund industry assets sink as performance ebbed in 2Q
NEW YORK, July 19 (Reuters) – Even though investors put a
net $4.1 billion into hedge funds in the second quarter of 2012,
it was not enough to offset performance losses at many funds
that resulted in total industry assets shrinking.
Hedge fund capital dropped from $2.13 trillion in the first
quarter to $2.1 trillion, with the average fund down 2.7
percent, fund tracking firm Hedge Fund Research said on
Thu rsday.
Prominent investors offer ways to get returns
NEW YORK (Reuters) – With Europe’s debt crisis bubbling along and fears rising in some quarters that the U.S. stock rally might fizzle, prominent investors have ideas ranging from betting against Europe’s common currency to shorting Hewlett Packard stock and buying Capital One Financial Corp shares.
J.P.Morgan Chase & Co’s Mary Callahan Erdoes, head of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, told the CNBC Delivering Alpha conference on Wednesday that her single best investment idea is to short Europe’s common currency.
Paulson losses grow as Europe bet hurts
NEW YORK (Reuters) – An already very bad year is looking even worse for hedge fund industry titan John Paulson after a bet against Europe lost many of his funds more money last month.
For the year, one of Paulson’s biggest portfolios, the Advantage Plus fund, is off 18 percent. His gold fund is down 23 percent and June’s declines took a bite out of the gains in some of his other funds, according to two investors familiar with the numbers but unable to discuss them publicly.
Saba’s Weinstein exits bet against JPMorgan: sources
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Saba Capital Management’s Boaz Weinstein recently exited a now famous and profitable credit derivative bet against JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), according to sources familiar with the trade.
In May, JPMorgan reported a $2 billion trading loss in its chief investment office, due to large bets on an obscure group of indexes that track the performance of corporate bonds, including the Markit CDX NA IG Series 9 index. Weinstein’s Saba, among other funds, bet against that trade.
Investors wary of Europe but ready to jump into high-yield -EPFR
NEW YORK, June 22 (Reuters) – Even as a conservative,
pro-bailout party won the Greek election and quieted fears that
the nation would exit the euro zone, anxious investors withdrew
billions from European money market and bond funds and sought
safety in the United States in the latest week, data for EPFR
Global showed on Fr ida y.
Investors pulled $7.5 billion from European money market
managers in the week ending June 20, and withdrew $886 million
from European bond funds after removing over $1 billion from
those managers the previous week. Redemptions from German bond
funds reached a 12-week high.
UF Weekend Reads
Yes, Germany and Greece have been in a war of words in the unfolding crisis over the latter’s membership in the euro zone, but this afternoon the two nations face off in a different (and far more entertaining) way: they go head-to-head in the European Championship quarterfinal.
As Reuters’ Alexander Hudson reports from Poland, the setting of tonight’s more-than-just-a-game battle, “When Greece take the football field in the Polish coastal city of Gdansk… the honor of the nation is at stake.” Greece, by the way, has never beaten Germany on the soccer pitch.
Investors fled Europe-linked hedge funds in May: report
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors cut their exposure to hedge funds that invest in and are located in Europe during May as the euro zone financial crisis wrought havoc on global markets, data showed on Wednesday.
Investors last month withdrew about $9.3 billion from hedge funds located in Europe and pulled $9.1 billion from hedge funds that invest mostly in Europe, hedge fund tracking firm eVestment|HFN found.
Spain, not Greece, on the minds of many money managers
By Katya Wachtel
On Sunday, voters in Greece’s parliamentary election gave market-watchers the result they wanted.
But in the minds of many money managers, those election results are little more than a band-aid for the euro zone’s deep and complex debt problems, and their attention is focused further West. Many hedge fund managers say it is Spain – the euro zone’s fourth largest economy and the recent recipient of a 100 billion euro bank bailout – that is the real concern for the stability global financial markets.
Credit hedge funds profit despite rocky markets
NEW YORK (Reuters) – In a year of uneven returns for many U.S. hedge funds, managers who invest mainly in bonds have outshone stockpickers.
Over the first five months of the year, credit-focused hedge fund portfolios were up 4.11 percent compared with a 2.4 percent gain for stock-focused ones, according to hedge fund tracking service eVestment|HFN.
Level Global deserves XL insurance coverage-judge
June 13 (Reuters) – A Manhattan federal judge has ordered an
insurer to keep advancing legal fees of a hedge fund implicated
in a criminal insider trading probe, saying the insurer was not
excused because a fund analyst knew there might be a fraud when
the policy was taken out.
Wednesday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer
is a defeat for XL Specialty Insurance Co, which had sought to
rescind its $10 million policy for Level Global Investors LP and
recoup more than $7.3 million already advanced, including to
co-founder Anthony Chiasson.
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