One of the 'chief architects of Goldman's Big Short' on the subprime debacle is reaping the rewards of the Fed's actions once again at his new hedge fund. After backing up the subprime truck in 2007 for Goldman, Josh Birnbaum is back (at Tilden Park Capital) and according to Bloomberg [3], is up 30% this year as we presume he is front-running the Fed's repression. The 40-year old founded the firm as a number of funds enter the non-agency mortgage-bond market where there are "billions of bonds trading a week and they are hotly debated" which creates opportunity from different valuations - as opposed to the agency-side where the heavy hand of Bernanke moves everything systemically. Ironically while Birnbaum bet it all on Subprime weakness at Goldman, he appears to be all-in on recovery this time as he notes "some of these recovery plays are compelling" and is "significantly more constructive" now than a year ago.
