Le « trading » des produits énergétiques en pleine restructuration

Les Echos

De grands noms du monde des fonds spéculatifs new-yorkais ont repris LDH Energy, la plate-forme de « trading » de matières premières énergétiques de Louis Dreyfus et de Highbridge Capital Management. Morgan Stanley va aussi céder son activité de négoce d’énergie au fonds souverain du Qatar.

L’industrie des « hedge funds » français à la recherche d’un nouveau souffle

Les Echos

En France, le secteur représente une quinzaine de milliards d’euros d’actifs pour environ 220 fonds, une goutte d’eau. L’affaire Madoff, la crise financière et des performances parfois décevantes ont laissé des traces. Si de nouveaux acteurs émergent, les investisseurs se font toujours désirer.

Why the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund isn’t worried

CNN Money

The possibility of a worldwide depression or a market crash doesn’t keep Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, up at night. The world, especially southern Europe, may be standing on the edge of an abyss, says Bridgewater Associates’ Dalio, but he has faith in the power of central bankers around the globe to essentially print money as needed.

"The world has a lot of liquidity," Dalio said Wednesday morning, during a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. In other words, he believes central bankers won’t allow the global economy to fall off that cliff.

Une idylle sans nuages entre le géant américain Apple et les « hedge funds »

Les Echos

Les fonds alternatifs plébiscitent l’action du groupe américain depuis longtemps en raison de ses performances exceptionnelles.

Si ce n’est pas de l’amour, cela y ressemble. Les « hedge funds » plébiscitent presque sans réserves la marque à la pomme compte tenu de ses performances boursières astronomiques et, en outre, régulières. Le marché a beau être toujours plus exigeant avec le groupe fondé par Steve Jobs, celui-ci parvient à surpasser les attentes.

Paulson’s luster lust

New York Post

Double down!

Hedge fund biggie John Paulson, the world’s foremost gold bug, added to his precious metal hoard during the second quarter.

Gold now accounts for 44 percent of his entire stock portfolio. The biggest increase was the additional 4.5 million shares of SPDR Gold Trust, a gold exchange-traded fund. The firm reported a $3 billion decline in the value of its stock portfolio, to $12 billion for June 30, down from $15 billion on March 31, in the quarterly statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission that were filed yesterday. SPDR Gold now accounts for $3.39 billion of Paulson’s entire portfolio, or 28 percent. The exchange-traded fund lost about 4 percent during the quarter.

Noble warns of ‘stressful’ year ahead

Financial Times

Noble Group, one of Asia’s largest commodities traders, warned investors that 2012 would be another “stressful” year as it posted a 57 per cent fall in fourth-quarter net profit. Hong Kong-based Noble, which is listed in Singapore, made a net profit of $105.7m in the three months to the end of December, having shocked the market in the third quarter with its first quarterly loss in more than a decade.

Richard Elman, Noble’s acting chief executive, said 2012 would be “challenging”.

“It’s steady as she goes, cautious, watching everything very carefully, not doing anything silly, and continuing to grow and build the business,” said Mr Elman, who founded Noble in 1987.

Size matters in hedge funds

Financial Times

The hedge fund industry is becoming increasingly concentrated as investors put larger sums of money into the sector and allocate to bigger funds, according to Deutsche Bank’s 10th annual alternative investment survey. Half of the investors surveyed had more than $1bn in hedge funds, double the number in 2004, while 44 per cent said they invested with hedge funds that had more than $1bn in assets. By the end of 2011, approximately 5 per cent of hedge fund groups managed 90 per cent of total assets, according to the survey, which predicted the trend would continue.

Dalio takes hedge crown from Soros

Financial Times

Ray Dalio has overtaken George Soros as the world’s most successful hedge fund manager after his Bridgewater Pure Alpha fund made $13.8bn for investors last year. The profits made by the Connecticut-based Pure Alpha – already the world’s biggest hedge fund, with $72bn under management using its trading strategy – beat its own record for the largest one-year dollar gain last year. However, the ranking by LCH Investments, part of the Edmund de Rothschild group, also showed last year the biggest-ever loss by a hedge fund. John Paulson’s New York-based Paulson & Co lost investors $9.6bn last year, more than was lost in the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. But Mr Paulson is still ranked third for the best overall returns for investors, at $22.6bn.

Top Ten Absolute Return Fund Managers
By net gains (after fees) since inception to December 31 2011	Net gains ($bn)	Strategy assets under management ($bn)	Inception
Bridgewater Pure Alpha (3)	35.8	71.9	1975
Quantum Endowment Fund* (1)	31.2	22.2	1973
Paulson & Co (2)	22.6	22.6	1994
Baupost (4)	16.0	23.0	1983
Brevan Howard Fund (8)	15.7	26.5	2003
Appaloosa (5)	13.7	13.0	1993
Caxton Global* (6)	13.1	6.9	1983
Moore Capital Mgmnt (7)	12.7	14.0	1990
Farallon (9)	12.2	19.5	1987
SAC	12.2	13.2	1992
Source: LCH Investments ests; Manager data and annual reports; internal ests	*Founding manager retired	2010 rankings in brackets

 

Hedge Funds Rise But Still Can’t Beat Stocks

Barron’s

Even when markets are humming, it’s still been less of a joy for hedge funds. That, at least, is the signal from theMorningstar MSCI Composite Hedge Fund Index, an asset-weighted composite of nearly 1,000 funds, which rose 1.9% in January, for its largest monthly gain since December 2010, Dow Jones Newswires reports this afternoon. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index added 4.4% in January.

Paulson Faces Tough Going Splitting Hartford, Bernstein Says

Barron’s

Hedge-fund manager John Paulson’s newest pet project is splitting Hartford Financial (HIG) into separate property-and-casualty and life insurance companies. But the idea could face tough going because of cash-flow issues in the life-insurance business, according to Bernstein Research’s Suneet Kamath.

Of particular interest is how debtholders are likely to react — something that’s gotten less attention than what Paulson has argued is the huge store of shareholder value that’s unlockable by a split, Kamath says:

Ces gérants de « hedge funds » qui ont défié les lois de la gravité en 2011

Les Echos

Les gérants de « hedge funds » ont connu une année noire en 2011. Seule une minorité est parvenue à rester dans le vert selon « Bloomberg ». La crise grecque a rebattu les cartes d’un secteur très concurrentiel où les stars d’hier ne sont plus nécessairement celles d’aujourd’hui.

John Paulson vs Hartford Financial

FT Alphaville

You’ll have to imagine how it sounded. But here’s an interesting demonstration of John Paulson at work… stepping onto Hartford Financial’s earnings conference call to lambast the insurer’s performance. Shares in Hartford dropped 39 per cent last year. Paulson’s the biggest holder.

Paulson was decidedly not happy with a presentation from Hartford Financial on Wednesday, which he said failed to adequately examine the benefits of spinning off its Life and Property & Casualty units. So he tore into chairman/president/chief executive Liam McGee — from the conference call transcript:

Bruising year for commodities hedge funds

Financial Times

The commodities hedge fund industry has suffered its worst year in more than a decade as the sector’s top managers recorded heavy losses amid volatile markets. The average commodity hedge fund fell 1.7 per cent in 2011, according to a closely watched index compiled by Newedge, the first loss since the index was created in 2000 and down from a rise of 10.7 per cent in 2010.

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Brevan Howard Made Money In 2011 Betting On Market Stupidity, Sees "Substantial Dislocation" In 2012

Zero Hedge

While Paulson’s star was finally setting in 2011, that of mega macro fund Brevan Howard was rising, and has been rising for years by never posting a negative return since 2003. The $34.2 billion fund, now about double the size of John Paulson’s, returned 12.12% in a year marked by abysmal hedge fund performance. But how did it make money?

Brevan Howard Proves Master of Hedge Funds With Four in Top 100

Bloomberg

When Alan Howard set off for a business trip to India as a young Salomon Brothers bond trader in the late 1980s, colleagues advised against drinking local water. When he got back, the buzz on his trading desk was about the huge tab Howard had run up buying cases of Evian water, according to a person who worked with him at the time.