Subprime Mess

There are some people that saw the whole subprime implosion coming. Paulson & Co. (AUM > $20Billion) is the New York-based hedge-fund manager that runs the Paulson Credit Opportunities Fund. Through July, the fund is up a staggering 303%. It is interesting to note that some foreign listed hedge fund of funds have exposure to Paulson....

The Fed Is Irrelevant & Canadian Happy Hour

I largely agree with Jim Rogers in the video from Bloomberg, and this article from John Hussman. In other news, my roommate is Canadian, and he will be buying happy hour today. Canadian Dollar hits parity:

New Choices In Private Equity

I have written a great deal in the past about foreign listed hedge funds. As far as private equity vehicles go, there are only a few. I don't like PSP, and IPRV.L (fact sheet here) is traded in London (IPRV is the ETF Barclays launched based on the S&P Private Equity Index).It is interesting to note that...

Body Slam That Mortgage Or Auto Loan!

Home of the "Figure-4 Process"?This website is simply amazing.From the website:Tired of getting the runaround and turndown from all the big lenders?Now with Ric Flair Finance will do all the work for you.Just complete a simple application and in seconds Ric Flair Finance will connect you to a lender who is right for your financial situation.We Compete, so you...

Time to Hedge Your House?

Brad Zigler has a great article over on SeekingAlpha on the S&P Case/Shiller housing futures - "Does Hedging Make You A Chicken?". (For more info on housing futures, check out the MacroMarkets site and the S&P Case/Shiller site.)The most interesting chart from the Merc website is the correlation table below which basically shows that housing is negatively correlated...

Tony Crabel And The Secret ORB

Sounds like a Harry Potter title doesn't it? ORB actually stands for "Opening Range Breakout", and is part of the title for an out of print book by Tony Crabel - "Day Trading With Short Term Price Patterns and Opening Range Breakout". This book can be had for the bargain price of $500 on Amazon.com. Here is...

When Will We See A Bottom In Homebuilders?

Homebuilders are down almost 70% from their highs. Time to buy, or would you be simply catching a falling knife?Below is a chart of the Dow Jones Home Construction Index, currently the worst performing industry YTD at -50%. It is down roughly 67% from the high. If it continues along the lines of the NASAQ decline...

Managed Futures – Wide Disparity in Performance

Is it time for the Old Guard to disappear into the sunset?I blogged in July about the news Rentech was planning on moving into the managed futures space in a big way. Talk about good timing - since that time many of the largest futures funds have been hemorrhaging money.Two of the oldest and most famous managed futures...

Investing in Talents: Manager Characteristics and Hedge Fund Performances

If this new academic paper is true, I should be managing billions and shooting the lights out! (Although if wheat continues its trajectory towards the moon, I may just have to move this operation to our farm in Kansas.)ABSTRACTUsing a large sample of hedge fund manager characteristics, we provide one of the first comprehensive studies on the impact...

I’m Going Back to Cali. . .

Besides having one of the best moustaches around, Mohamed El-Erian is one of the elite investment managers in American today. (I tried a moustache for a week and looked like a really creepy pedophile.) Which is why it is shocking that he has decided to abandon his post as the manager of Harvard University's $35bn endowment to...