2013 may have been a bad year for Bill Gross, but nobody had it worse than John Taylor. The former head of FX concepts saw his hedge fund - once an FX trading behemoth and the largest in the world with $14 billion in AUM in 2007 - crash, burn, and file for bankruptcy as we reported previously [5]. But the cherry on top was the revelation that a year before its filing, Taylor personally guaranteed some $5 million of the FX Concepts' debt owed to Asset Management Finance, a unit of Credit Suisse. Surely, such a sequence of events would be enough to turn even the staunchest financial addict away from the markets for ever. But not John Taylor - the former FX guru has a message for all of you: he is not only back, but is launching a newsletter.... oh and he has a Bloomberg terminal too.
From Reuters [6]:
Three months after FX Concepts filed for bankruptcy protection, its founder John Taylor said he will manage funds again and focus on technical and quantitative research for the company that once ranked as the world's largest currency hedge fund.
"The market is my home, not administration; I am back," Taylor said in a letter to clients dated Jan. 9.
"The newsletter business will be the primary business asset and livelihood of John R. Taylor as it was years ago."
In his letter, Taylor addressed FX Concepts' troubles for the first time since it filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 17. He has not responded to requests for interviews and sources said he is currently in the midst of negotiations with banks.
"Things have changed and are still changin' at FX Concepts where it is fair to say the world has been turned upside down," said Taylor. "FX Concepts filed Chapter 11 in October, an ignominious end for our company."
It sure was, but onward and upward to the best news:
"It is difficult to operate without phones, e-mail addresses, or even business cards, but I have rented an office and we have Bloomberg, CQG (market data provider), and friends in the banking world giving us information galore," said Taylor.
Well in that case, where does one sign up for the $29.95 monthly newsletter. As for the newsletter's contents: "a new series of updated medium-term and intra-day models have been created and will be launched as soon as Credit Suisse gives FX Concepts the approval."
Will Credit Suisse also be a news letter client? Because there is nothing quite as liberating as paying someone with a virtual portfolio to tell you when to buy or sell based on sophisticated proprietary model that send out an alert anytime the 50 DMA trendline is crossed.