Salient to Investors: Ted Eliopoulos at Calpers said their small hedge fund allocation did not effectively diversify or hedge any meaningful portion of their total portfolio and their decision to divest the entire allocation was unrelated to its performance. Keith Brainard at National Assn of State Retirement Administrators said Calpers is often
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Julian Robertson at Tiger Mgmt said: You cannot expect spouses who love each other and are in the stock business not to talk stocks. People that compete well in one thing compete well in other things. In the hedge-fund industry, a few stock picks can make or break
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Few businesses are large enough to merit Warren Buffett’s attention. Berkshire Hathaway spent a third of the total from a year earlier on equities in half1 2014, while sales of stock more than doubled. Buffett dislikes paying a dividend and rarely buys back shares. David Rolfe at Wedgewood Partners said Buffett’s list
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hedge funds returned an average of 7.4 percent in 2013, trailing the S&P 500 by 23 percent and for the 5th straight year. The Bloomberg Hedge Funds Aggregate Index is down 1.8 percent from its July 2007 peak. Jay Rogers at Alpha Strategies Investment Consulting said hedge
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hedge funds returned 7.1 percent in 2013 through November versus the 29.1 percent return of the S&P 500 Index, with reinvested dividends, and are headed for their worst annual performance relative to US stocks since at least 2005 and underperforming for the fifth year in a row.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: There are more than 400 liquid alternative, hedge-fund-like strategies offered in a mutual fund wrapper, up from a few dozen prior to the financial crisis. Many observers think it unlikely that equity returns will continue to be as robust as the last 5 years, while bonds face
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The NACUBO and the Commonfund Institute said US college endowments allocated 47 percent of their investment portfolios to alternative assets in the year ended in June, versus 54 percent the prior year. NACUBO-Commonfund said colleges earned an average endowment investment return of 11.7 percent in the year
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Managed futures turned out to be good for brokers and fund managers but not for investors. During the decade ended in 2012, over 30,000 investors put $797 million in a managed-futures fund called Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Spectrum Technical LP, which already had $341.6 million invested during
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Markit reports US hedge funds were short 2.4 per cent of shares, close to an all-time low. Only 6 companies reporting earnings this week have more than 3 per cent of their stock sold short. In Europe’s Stoxx 50 index of top companies, it is only 2. HFR
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stanley Druckenmiller said: The poverty rate for seniors over the last 35 years has dropped from 35% to 9%, while their wealth has dramatically increased The numbers of seniors is about to explode and there is no way we can pay for what we have promised them. The US
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