Billionaire value investor and hedge fund manager, David Einhorn, said in an investor letter this week: “The market remains very challenging for value investing strategies, as growth stocks have continued to outperform value stocks. The persistence of this dynamic leads to questions regarding whether value investing is a viable strategy." Show More
As a follow up to my most recent commentary on gold and interest rates, I have attached what I consider to be two very interesting slides. The first relates to the net positioning of two of the most widely traded long-term US Treasury futures - 10-year and 5-year Treasuries. It... Show More
In The Australian Financial Review I reveal what is likely one of the best non-tech trades of the 21st century (with a 2,000% gross return) that I had to fly to Las Vegas to learn about; discuss the top trades in my own portfolios in 2016, which focussed on the... Show More
Fred Wilson is the founder of New York-based Union Square Ventures, an early-stage venture firm that’s achieved a US$1B+ exit each year since 2011 – including Tumblr, Twitter, Lending Club, and Etsy. He also writes AVC, the most popular morning read among ‘elite VCs’ based on guests from The Twenty... Show More
In The AFR I argue that loading up on long-dated interest rate duration across any asset-class---including the massive amounts embedded in equities, fixed-rate bonds and property---when yields have been at the lowest levels in human history is a self-evidently crazy-brave trade akin to financial Russian roulette with probabilities tilted towards... Show More
In my weekly column for The AFR I always like to engage with new investment talent, and my latest missive profiles Dr Desmond Lun, the Australian MIT PhD who is a professor of computer science at Rutgers University in the US and the manger of a systematic quant fund that... Show More
In my monthly column for the Smart Investor magazine I consider the rise of so-called "unconstrained" bond funds, the exemplar of which is co-portfolio managers Bill Gross and Kumar Palghat's Janus product which punts outright bonds, high yield (ie, sub-investment grade debt), listed equities, global currencies and likes to sell... Show More
In The Australian Financial Review I explain how Macquarie Bank has side-stepped the interest rate rigging scandal plaguing the major banks; examine the performance of some of Australia's best performing equity hedge funds (VGI and LHC are up 18% and 20% respectively over the last 12mths); segue into how you... Show More
In The Australian Financial Review I explain how the major banks have bashed the "johnny-come-lately" hedge fund barbarians at the gate who attempted to short-sell their equity and debt while going long their credit default swaps. The catalysts have been: a huge upside surprise in Australia's real GDP growth rate,... Show More
In The AFR I track the global hedge funds' "drive by" on the big banks over the last week, which involved an incredibly savvy media management campaign and triggered the largest "puke" in major bank spreads seen since the global financial crisis. Excerpts below: "The financial market impact of this... Show More
In The AFR today I explain how the major bank "widow-maker" trade, which hammered bears for years as their stock prices soared, is back with vengeance: hedge funds are shorting the majors' stocks and betting on credit risks rising. Excerpt enclosed below: "AA- rated Aussie major bank senior credit default... Show More
Bloomberg has released its “2015: The year in Money” report. The 10 highlights were 1) Apple hit a record $775B market cap. 2) Netflix was the best performer in the S&P500 (Up 143%) 3) Sales of investment grade corporate bonds are at an all time high. 4) The junk bond... Show More
The B word is splashed around all over the place these days. Too often, in my view. Bonds are a bubble. Stocks are a bubble. Sydney property is a bubble, too, haven’t you heard? Show More
The key ingredients of the recent bounce in markets were created from continuing Central Bank support and short covering activities by hedge funds. Show More
In my AFR column over the weekend, I evaluated the performance of our preferred portfolio posture in 2015, which is a bar-belled strategy split between cash and alpha-focussed long-short and market neutral hedge funds with minimal beta. Given extreme market volatility, abysmal equity market returns, and never-ending shocks, this approach... Show More
In an interview with CNBC the Hedge Fund pioneer Julian Robertson says that Apple and Google are so cheap that they should be considered the value stocks of today. “Apple would be selling at double or triple its price now if this were the 60’s, the 70’s or the 80’s.... Show More
Hedge funds betting on gold. Hedge funds are the most bullish on gold in more than two years, betting the metal's allure will strengthen as slowing economies in Europe and Asia threaten US expansion. Speculators increased their net-long position by 80 per cent this year, US government data shows. The... Show More
The picture is completing fast, I believe the time is approaching to Move into Cash. Recent volatility in oil, iron ore and gold have chewed up all the attention recently, but in my opinion I think international markets are close to a 15% correction. I read on Bloomberg this morning, that Hedge... Show More
In the US there's a goldilocks hedge fund size. According to a report by Preqin, Hedge funds with assets under management of $US100-999 million beat their bigger brethren in terms of 12-month average returns in 2013. The mid-sized firms on average beat the larger firms ($1-5BN) by more than 1.5%... Show More
Despite the recent political turmoil that has shaken global markets, hedge funds have rarely been more bullish on equities. Global stocks are up 19% year to date while short-selling of equities is at an all-time low. Many hedge funds currently have a long bias in equities with the average fund... Show More