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As The Hedge Fund Slaughter Continues, Here Is Who Is Unwinding And What Stocks To Watch
Last week we reported that in the aftermath of the vicious high-flying momo, high-beta mauling, hedge funds had their worst week since 2001 (excluding such "end of the world" days as Lehman and the 2011 debt ceiling fiasco). Specifically, we said that the crush was nowhere worse than in the "hedge fund hotel" basket of names most near and dear to the hearts of hedge funds, and respectively those most hated, one which Goldman defines as the long Very Important Positions <GSTHHVIP> vs. short Very Important Shorts <GSTHVISP>. This is how the chart showing the weekly hedge fund P&L of this most popular pair trade looked like.
We ruminated on the benefits of hedge funds which no longer "hedge" and try to reach for alpha, but are merely levered beta-pursuing vehicles: "when after five years of underperforming the market, investors continue to ask themselves just what are they paying hedges 2 and 20 for - obviously it is not to hedge risk, in a market in which the Fed has made it all too clear a market downturn is no longer a possibility. It must be for the "benefits" of the herd effect of everyone loading up on the same positions, and when one sells, everyone sells and leading to sharp losses for the bulk of the "smart money out there."
Well, as expected, the next week - the one that just passed - what was certain to be a reflexive, margin call-driven continuation of the selloff as levered positions continued unwinding, indeed happened.
Goldman's David Kostin reports:
"The recent momentum reversal has focused on high growth stocks, many of which are constituents in our hedge fund basket"..."high expected sales growth and firms with high EV/sales multiples. Our 50-stock sector-neutral portfolio of firms with the highest expected sales growth surged 3.4% during the first 60 days of 2014 (250 bp above S&P 500), before retreating by 2.4% during March and trailing S&P 500 by 320 bp (Bloomberg: <GSTHREVG>). Stocks on both lists were social media, internet, and biotechnology firms that had led the market during the prior six months. These high growth/high multiple stocks feature prominently on our list of “stocks that matter most” to hedge fund performance (<GSTHHVIP>). Having outperformed by 230 bp through February, our VIP basket dropped 2% in March while S&P 500 climbed 0.8%. Long positions trail by 98 bp YTD."
Or, said much more simply, a furious unwind of levered positions for the second week in a row.
So furious that some of the marquee hedge fund names are already getting slammed for the year in what everyone said would be a guaranteed way to make a killing in 2014. From the WSJ:
Andor Capital Management LLC, once one of the world's biggest technology-focused hedge funds, plunged 18% last month. The $15 billion Discovery Capital Management LLC lost 9.3% in its flagship fund.... Both funds are in the red for 2014, according to people familiar with the firms.
Many of the biggest hedge-fund falls stemmed from wagers on highflying technology stocks that shot up last year and in the first two months of 2014. The last week of March was one of the worst weeks for stock hedge-funds' returns compared with the S&P 500 since 2001, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which tracks the stocks important to hedge funds.
Andor, based in Rye Brook, N.Y., saw its fortunes reverse after sticking to a strategy that drove the firm to a 35% gain in 2013. Some of the firm's biggest long-term positions, including Facebook and Google Inc., fell steeply last month.
Founded by former Pequot Capital Management co-head Daniel Benton, Andor manages about $1 billion. Mr. Benton previously managed more than $6 billion in an earlier incarnation of the firm.Andor was down 5% in the first quarter overall, according to a person familiar with the firm.
The $9 billion Coatue Management LLC, started by Philippe Laffont, a veteran of Julian Robertson's Tiger Management, also was hurt by the reversal in technology stocks. Coatue's flagship fund lost 8.7% in March and is down 7.4% for the year. A spokesman declined to comment.
Another Tiger alumnus, Robert Citrone of Discovery, described the month's carnage as a "perfect storm." Wagers involving stocks accounted for 85% of the firm's March losses, the people said.
Curious which hedge fund is unwinding (the first of many)? Here is the answer:
Discovery was founded in 1999 by Mr. Citrone, a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team.
On an investor call Thursday, Mr. Citrone said Discovery had reduced the amount of risk it was taking and that he remained confident that U.S. growth was accelerating.
Last time Discovery caught a lucky break:
Several investors said they were concerned by the magnitude of Discovery's March loss but added that they expect volatility from the firm, which has returned an average annualized 17% since inception. Discovery has rebounded from similar-size losses before. In about a month last year, from mid-May through late June, Discovery's $8.5 billion flagship fund lost 9%, in part because of a decline on Japanese stocks. But the fund more than made up the loss by the end of the year, returning 27% for 2013.
This time it may not be so lucky.
Ironically, we were right once again because as Goldman further adds: "Short holdings created problems by rising 130 bp more than S&P 500 YTD."
Gee, where have we seen this before, not to mention predicted this would happen? Why here: "Presenting The Best Trading Strategy Over The Past Year: Why Buying The Most Hated Names Continues To Generate "Alpha"
Thank you Chairman Bernanke and Chairmanwoman Yellen, not to mention HFT vacuum tubes, for making the market so broken, a tinfoil blog can outperform the smartest money in the street.
Finally, for those curious where the pain will continue to be focused as the HF levered unwind accelerates, here are the most held long hedge fund positions where the slaughter will be the most painful in the coming days.
And here are the most hated ones. Needless to say, these should continue to generate what little "alpha" is left in this pathetic, rigged, broken market.
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Just fucking crash/correct/retrace or whatever the fuck. These valuations and "market" are total bullshit.
It can't happen quickly enough...Jump, you fuckers!
Mr. Citrone is dumping his lemons.
Will we be left to making lemonaid....again?
The retail investor has been driven out of the market. It is time for the big boys to cannibalize each other. This is a warm up. Bitchez!!
Why is Pfizer listed in both places? /sarc
Ah, I fondly remember some 25 years ago (yes, I was in the biz then and I still can remember snippets, especially schadenfreude) when simple day to day bond salespeople. Yea, bond peddlers, that is all, no other significant business qualifications, were leaving their mother-ship firms, the Big Bulge Bracket Bond Houses and starting up "hedge funds".
The beauty of the business was it's very unregulated and secretive nature.
Hi, Mr Bond Peddler, tell me what you do?
I run a hedge fund.
How do you run the money, what is your philosophy and process?
I can't tell you that because I'd give away my trade super duper ultra private proprietary sensitive world beating insights because I'm so smart.
But I'm interested in placing money with you.
You'll have to trust me.
Oh, and what are your fees?
2% + 20%
Seems high for you not telling me who what when and especially how
You just don't get it, do you?
So off they toddled, borrowing short and investing long (aka Savings and Loan model) with a rising tide that lifted all boats.
90% of the managers out there have no insight, proprietary edge in the market, no outstanding process.
Go figure.
Raise $100MM, gear it 20X so borrow about $2B at 2%, and just be long a rising market at 10% returns and whadday get?
A levered market return, 100% levered Beta, less the 2% fee and 20% of the gain.
Fucking useless.
Buncha vultures, vampire squid like behavior without the brains.
Bad people, lying about what they have in knowledge sets, what they can do and how they do it.
Yes, I have an ethical problem with most those folks.
Ray Dalio, et al, great stuff, real deal, and deserving of acclaim.
Most the rest, BS Deluxe
Sadly, there was nowhere to run. Even us retail longs discovered market index funds cranked up their fees until you were making 3% when you made anything at all. Down years we ate the loss.
Luckily, that greed drove me and anyone with eyes to see out of the market. Cash and bond mutual funds, until the bond mutual funds cranked up the fees until they were yielding 1%. After that, cash only.
The professionals quit the 401(k) crowd long before wage earners quit them.
There must be 50 ways to unwind an insane market position.
You Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
She said it grieves me so
To see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do
To make you smile again
I said I appreciate that
And would you please explain
About the fifty ways
@knukles
Funny how you can be "in the biz" and yet not have the stink of the vampire squid upon you. You're just recounting tales where you screwed over customers just like they did, except you leave out the part where you collected your fee.
Its okay, I understand that when you advance in years memories tend to self-modify so they favor the "rose colored" rememberance.
Son, I was and still am on the buy side, primarily institutional money, accepting my role with all due and proper full fiduciary standards of protecting other people's money from leaches, pestilence and scourges such as the Vampire Squid ... as well as fools who speak of that which they know not.
+1.
Yea, the miracle man who wasn't, or the poet who didn't know it.
protecting other people's money from leaches
I respect your position and honesty, however the very nature of this game is "ownership" and you are certainly owned by Vampire Squid and the likes by playing the game - THEIR GAME, THEY OWN IT!!. They will tell you what to buy, what to sell and when to do it. Until you can turn yourself into a bank holding company and reap hundreds of billions from the taxpayers, your just another pawn with good wishes.
Makes perfect sense then. Money is the ultimate rationalizing force. I guess everyone has their price, for you it means comfortable retirement when the rest of the people working out there are struggling to get by.
Flogging goals such as "protecting other people's money" sound nice and mighty on a forum, but still leaves out the fact that you are encouraging them to put their money into a system that has failed in so many ways, that the very act of perpetuating any trading in it is akin to assisted suicide.
This explains so much about your commentary and easy-go-lucky attitude about the tragedies around you. You aren't vested at all in the "common man". Well, only so much so that you get paid, of course...
You can make that lemonade, but don't think you can sell without a million dollar permit. You Serfs!
It doesn't matter what kind of paper .. permits .. our clients fold...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U6MOfuFX-Q
... or the lemonade they make and consume, Duke and Duke will still get the commissions (and toast some mighty fine, if precocious mixing manners concierge service) which the foil folders are more than happy to run book on .. and re-trans the humor .. all the way to Pearl ;-)
Cheers
Remember this one:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/03/the-inexplicable-war-on-...
August 2011
In Coralville, Iowa police shut down 4-year-old Abigail Krstinger’s lemonade stand after it had been up for half an hour. Dustin Krustinger told reporters that his daughter was selling lemonade at 25 cents a cup during the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa (or RAGBRAI), and couldn’t have made more than five dollars, adding “If the line is drawn to the point where a four-year-old eight blocks away can’t sell a couple glasses of lemonade for 25 cents, than I think the line has been drawn at the wrong spot.”
Not going to happen. I bet tomorrow morining everything will be green and honky dory. Hell we might reach new highs on the DOW, NASDAQ, and S&P. The market is totally rigged. Jump fuckers, junp!
The dollar is the sacrificial lamb in all this, it will break before the market does. The actual currency they are spending to keep this shit propped up is confidence in the USD.
Yep...It's all Bullshit!!!
Dow 17,000 here we come! Dont buy Gold or Silver!!!!! Wall St is doing God's work.. :-)
The only thing that you can count on continuing to crash is the economy. The Federal Reseve can print any number they wish now when it comes to the rigged stock market and they will.
I'm thinking Yellen might be a bit of a dominatrix
Debt-ceiling "fiasco", indeed. You should prepare for 2015 when Uncle Sam's credit card goes in the shredder and the culture wars turn hot.
Second half of 2014.
You don't need to read goat entrails to see the timeline now.
Full convertability of the yuan will be the last move in the chess game ending the petro dollar.
Its coming the summer.
Not sure about that. The Regime will do whatever is required to get through the election cycle.
It would be cheaper and more certain just to Diebold the whole thing and keep people distracted. Putin! Gays! Kardashians!
Bailout 3.0 on the way
Bailout or bail-in? Somehow I don't think they believe that printing money will "fix it" this time.
What's the over/under on dead bankers this week?
I called Jose in Vegas and he said the over under is two. Even odds on jumping. Ten to one Nailgun and 1000 to one Shitgum death.
Jose only deals in bitcoin...what does he know? Ha=ha!
One thousand to one shitgum death?
Where do I get that action?
Go long shitgum.
Any big names in the dead pool ?
Don't flame me bro...
For 4 years I have been buying 1 stock, and exiting all other positions, and that 1 stock is NOT on that list. Likely most have not heard of it, but I'll risk my neck, and submit the symbol anyway: IMSC
Implant Sciences
I know I'm gonna get nailed for this, but all I ever do is take from ZH, so here is a single donation to fellow readers. If you want some interesting reading, given global affairs, spend a moment reading about Explosive Trace Detection systems.
DO NOT BUY ANY STOCK BASED ON THIS POSTING.
Flame on!
The best stock is 'livestock'. Ask the Amish.
Or vegetable / mushroom / chicken / beef stock. :)
I like to have a stock of Gold, Silver, Guns and Ammo, Black Powder, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Food, Water, Fuel, Alcohol, Cigarettes (especially if you do NOT SMOKE), Fiat Currency and anything else needed for the oncoming collapse.
Tangible and tradable items are what you are going to need. They are what truly will have VALUE (Utility).
I upped you just to keep it even...
In the DC US all bombs 'trace' back to the FBI.
I wonder if this technology is employed to uncover the origin of the explosives used to bomb wedding parties in Yemen or schools in Pakistan?!
"My guillotine sees dead people."
Back in the game, eh Jordan Belfort?
So this is the smart money. Long AAPL but short AT&T. What do they think... people are going to buy new gadgets and not use a monthly service? This all beyond me.
Do realize how much debt AT&T has? It's staggering. And rising every day. Coupled with an unsustainable dividend payment. And the stock has surged the last few weeks.
Interesting, that would account for the short positioning. The surge IMHO is due to oension funds and mutual funds rotating into safe harbors because they believe taper will continue. They are big enough that it takes time.
It seems like a scam, but with the Fed punishing savers and rewarding debtors that the thing to do would be buying a debt-laden company on margin. I am not doing that, nor advocating it, I just wonder what is going on. There is an awful lot I do not know.
Interestingly when Winchester went broke during the depression, they were bought out by an ammo company.
Government Motors at the top..... WTF !!!!!!
Sort of makes you think they were told to buy it, or the assumption is the US will once again step in on behalf of our union brethren.
I buy mining stocks. C'est tout.
+1000
So the Brookstone Bankruptcy is ....Bullish?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/brookstone-files-for-bankruptcy-a...
"U.S. growth was accelerating"
to the downside yes
so, they didn't 'technically' lie, now did they....
They're all just beginning to realize they are going to have to stop main-lining HFT. Expect jitters as they delete and detox.
Except for the odd flash crash, HFT is just picking peanuts out of poo. They're as dependant on QE as the rest of the paper pushers.
When does the great Oil-smackdown a la the well known gold price supression begin ?
The final lap to WW 3 begins...
Place your bets!
Ohh sorry guys, hit the 00.
OT: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cia-official-dies-in-apparent-su...
BY: Bill Gertz
April 4, 2014 11:46 pm
A senior CIA official has died in an apparent suicide this week from injuries sustained after jumping off a building in northern Virginia, according to sources close to the CIA.
CIA spokesman Christopher White confirmed the death and said the incident did not take place at CIA headquarters in McLean, Va.
“We can confirm that there was an individual fatally injured at a facility where agency work is done,” White told the Washington Free Beacon. “He was rushed to a local area hospital where he subsequently died. Due to privacy reasons and out of respect for the family, we are not releasing additional information at this time.”
"He was rushed to a local area hospital where he subsequently died"
Hello! He jumped. Let him die already. Jesus!
They had to be sure...
The cyanide IV drip during the ambulance ride probably did the trick.
The spook realized who he's really working for? When and where the nukes are going off?
Powerless to do anything about it?
Groath, accelerating, where?
D-fence!
"Hedge fund slaughter?" We just printed all time highs. How do hedge funds get slaughtered on that tape? Seriously.
Why not read the article BEFORE asking a stupid question?
Hey, RevRex, fuck you.
When markets are at all time highs there is little room for upside movement (unless there is a lot of liquidity on the sidelines) and a large potential for stagnation and downside movement.
There is a lot of risk at all time highs with little reward to be gained. With the Taper and the removal of QE and, ideally the termination of ZIRP, there will be a lot less liquidity to maintain those "all time highs". Furthermore since stagnation and downside potential are the probable outcomes then people will tend to abandon those positions and seek profits elsewhere.
I don't know, Bob, but that spells out C-R-A-S-H in my book of definitions of investment strategies.
Were you around during the tech bubble? NOTHING supported any of those valuations. Here we go again.
Those bubbles were blown out of shitgum. I loved it when Greenspan popped that Tech Bubble by the five consecutive Interest Rate hikes.
For a long time I have been trying to develop a scenario for a market "super crash" and a reasonable map that would arrive at such a situation.Most investors think that even if things go downhill fast that they will be smart enough to get out of the markets. But what if it hits like the flash crash on steroids?
We know that can't happen because circuit breakers have been put in place to arrest panic style moves, but imagine a market that falls, trade is halted, and the market simply does not reopen for days, or even weeks. We have set up a house of cards based on debt and contagion is the cancer eating at the foundation. the article Flash Crash On Steroids can be found below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/01/flash-crash-on-steroids.html
Your in the crash my fiend, all you are looking for is a step leg down.
Relax secure first base. enjoy that you can.
Just tell him to relax, rehearse his lines, and it will all be over soon.
"Just tell him to relax, rehearse his lines, and it will all be over soon."
I'm kinda worried right now. I was just handed my script, and my lines are just "Oooooo baby, it's SO BIG" and "groans, panting, howling". Is there something I should know?
They'll combine that with an event that will not allow the sheeple to exit the market. Most of the FED money was wired indirectly into the market so never printed even. When that money comes out at an enormous profit we'll all see hyperinflation ending up with just the very rich and the very poor and no middle class. I sure hope I'm wrong.
You just described Bail In-Phase II.
Most of the serfs are in as holders of Mutual Funds in their 401Ks.
They've already cremated the savers by destroying returns on Interest Bearing Accounts. This was a heavy taxation as a punitive measure on those whom have saved in Fiat Currency. That was Bail In-Phase I.
The MyRA is going to become mandatory as they phase out the Social Security Ponzi System. It is the same Ponzi Game under a brand new and different name. It is about appearances and packaging. The same fraudulent schemes are just recycled, packaged under different names so that they will be perceived by the unwary as newer and somehow better.
Bail In - Phase III will be completed when Bank Failures happen and the savers are compelled to be unwitting shareholders in the failed Financial Institutions.
The destruction of the Middle Class has been the plan as they are not easy to rule. Few will see this coming. Some here may. But I will not expect it.
Obviously I do not support this but it is what has happened and what is happening to you.
Yellen you gots to be shaken some of your ugliness into the markets.
Shake that ugly maker.
Shake your ugly maker.
.
So you require expanding debt to keep the ponzi on the road?
Try paying your kids a decent wage!
No, well say good bye to 90% paper whoomungary.
Your house is worth 1 year wage.
Starve a boomer.
Silver slickers.
Starve a Boomer and starve yourself. That is the outcome of what you proposed.
Most Boomers cannot afford to pay their children a decent wage as they are also heavily indebted. If you want to sow the seeds of Generational Warfare then you miss the true targets of whom did this to your generation and the Boomers.
The Boomers have been defrauded as much as your generation. Their paper wealth is an illusion.
That is the agenda of the elite whom have your future mortgaged for their enrichment. That is the attitude that they want you to adopt.
The truth is that you were born into enslavement as the Bommers were born into enslavement. Ponzi Economies are always destined to fail as they are designed to make the criminal elite wealthy...for awhile.
That is the worthy target. You were not entitled to anything, by birth, as you are not a member of that elite class.
Perhaps a good place to start may be by burning down the Ivy League Institutions...like Yale.
But you will not do that as you were not programmed to do that.
Congratulations. Play your video games in your parent's basement. (Note the singular use of that word, parent, as many are from broken homes by design.)
And by all means do not turn off your Radio and TeeVee. You will miss your vital programming.
I wouldn't expect Halliburton to be at a great loss for the un-wind as mercenaries, (good one's), are in demand, especially with the ever-increasing backyard playgrounds.
Yeah, they should do well as long as the State is intact.
Yep usa soon.
There's a LOT of overlap between those two lists.
Say, would any ZH'r like to give me a pocket review of "smart beta" as a portfolio strategy?
"pathetic, rigged, broken market"/government
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning"...
It's a start; http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/VIX:IND
So,if you are looking for wild cards,I'd say China siding with Russia is the big one.Sanctions against either/or could be the catalyst.If Congress goes against Russia and then goes against China with sanctions,forget any co-operation on the Iran situation.Nuclear arms in Iran,she's a big game changer.I wouldn't put it past the idiots in Washington to create a trigger for market collapse to put us into some big summer doldrums.
I'm not sure that something that has become fake can ever crash. I guess we would expect them to crash themselves? Not sure "the crash" will ever happen.
There are two ways to lie: either misrepresent the facts and hope nobody catches you, or create an entire fantasy world and defend it savagely against any contradiction.
As long as the insiders still have the energy and resources to defend their alternate reality, they'll keep demanding we live in it. When the juice runs out, you'll see the cracks. It will end with a whimper, not a bang.
Anyone that stupidly voted for barry soetero the usurping illegal alien deserves the nazi govt hell martial law that is coming to them. False flag event coming soon.
Jim Rickards - End Of The International Monetary System Is Imminent
hedge funds vs. BIG GUNS another tail wag saga?
DOW 30,000!!! DOW 60,000!!! DOW 90,000!!!
This market will do whatever it has to do to control metal prices.
Unbelievable market caps the norm in this brave new world?
It is your patriotic duty to support DOW 100,000!!!
DOW 100'000 and a USD of << .2 / gold 50'000
JOIN US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB6fndULxww
There is no liquidity to obtain those levels. If that pump that much liquidity (MOAR QE) into the Markets you can bet that the Gold Price will rise accordingly.
Otherwise we give it all away to China at the bargain basement prices that we realize now.
Is this the part where sooperdooper hedge fund heroes find that when the beta is gone, they're fucked? Should be interesting.
Greenspam relied on the hedge funds to control inflation in the stock market.
Well, I guess that check on inflation is going away or weakening.
All for the greater good. The end justifies the means. All that Jesuit bullshit nonsense.
NEXT STOP - GLOBAL COMMUNISM!
Y...a...w...n........zzzzzzzzzzzz.........
Got bisquits and gravey?
And, who is at your police station now preparing to come get your guns, food, children, women, personal possessions, computers, and freedoms after the long well planed and prepared for false flag event triggers martial-Nazi-law time for the beginning of the war that the American govt will declare against it's own people?
On a more serial note. Thank you all for being the greatest world forum gathered to quorum and ponder all things of the three-D plane of existence. No where on earth have so many gathered, both light and dark hearts that all are realizing there is a lot moar going on in the matrix, than has been foretold to them. Even the dark stars drawn on the ground are realizing the realness of mortality. It happens when one gets older, and the only important things are of the heart. They realize they will no longer be drawing their cute little stars on the ground if they are no longer alive either. Or, the monster of false flagology to start world wars that trigger even greater UNEXPECTED events might also actually really kill off every breathing living biological life form on the face and under the face of the earth for ever and ever and well lets just say, another few millenniums.
Rapid mortality slaps every Soul on board hard in the face of the unreality and now it comes to the mast; is that your hearts real choice? Death??
@philalethian
Well i gota say yr comment has really cheered me up.
dp
The Fisher-Wallace Stimulator will stop depression and anxiety, or your money back.
That strange device looks like a resurrected electrical lobotomy device from the 50's!
Why would they advertise that here on ZeroHedge? Maybe they need to market it directly to those hedge funds being "slaughtered"? We're all happy and well adjusted here, aren't we?
Folks at hedge funds work very hard to try to bring professional money management to those that can appreciate their gifts.
cough.
Hey, it could have been worse. They could have been balls-to-the-wall long physical silver since 2011. Anyway I hear they bought at S&P 1000, so they're still good. Isn't that what you say around here?
Thank You Zero Hedge. Best inside Information that can be trusted.
no wonder my portfolio sucks