Posts tagged Peter Thiel
Clarium’s Peter Thiel’s Investment Tips: Preparing For A Deflationary World
Aug 4th
Clarium Capital’s Peter Thiel told Reuters that he’s preparing for deflation in an interview recently.
The video is below.
Here’s what he’s thinking:
- The proper view right now is deflationary, we’re not headed towards a runaway inflationary situation.
- The consensus seems to be on the inflationary side. People are nervous about the government printing money. But that’s not right.
- The economy is going to have a slow recovery for a number of years.
- There might be a double dip recession.
Investment tips:
- Don’t go long equities
- Government bonds are probaly fine
- The dollar is probably fine
- Avoid gold
He says to look 40 miles outside of major cities (SF, NYC), and remember that you’re still in the housing bust. “There are lots of problems.”
Then he waxed nostalgic for the good ol’ days.
If the whole US was like Silicon Valley, we’d be in good shape. But now, the entire US is not driven by technology, is not driven by innovation.
The model of the US economy is that we are the country that does new things. But over the past few decades, that’s changed. Now we have people that do crazy things, like weigh 600 pounds. We have to get back to being the country where people do things that are new.
We’re headed towards government austerity in a lot of countries, we’re not going to eep on piling on debt, but growth is going to be slow.
Global Macro Hedge Funds Lagging (Tudor, Moore, Brevan Howard, Clarium)
Apr 5th
We’ve recently seen some performance numbers from some of the top dogs in the global macro hedge fund game. And, it’s not what you’d expect. After all, these funds typically have free reign and can trade in interest rates, currencies, futures and sovereign debt… areas ripe with opportunity given the ever-changing dynamic of global economies. Yet, some of the world’s largest hedge funds seem to be struggling.
As the FT notes, Paul Tudor Jones’ flagship hedge fund Global BVI at Tudor Investment Corp was down 0.55% for 2010 as of the middle of March. Also, fellow global macro titan Louis Bacon seems to be seeing mixed results. His Moore Capital Management flagship fund is up 1.58% for the year. You’ll remember that Moore Capital was recently raided by the FSA for alleged insider trading by one of their traders for his personal account (not for trades made on behalf of the fund). However, Moore’s emerging markets fund was down 5.88% as of the middle of March. This fund is run by famed trader Greg Coffey (formerly of GLG). For more on Bacon’s hedge fund, we’ve posted up some recent portfolio activity out of Moore, as well as some of their UK positions.
Even more shocking perhaps is that the downward spiral at Peter Thiel’s hedge fund Clarium Capital has continued. ZeroHedge noted that Clarium lost 6.1% in the first three weeks of March and was now down 5.4% for the year. This all comes as US equity markets are up over 6.4% for 2010. We’re not quite sure what’s going on over there but after a fantastic start to the fund, the last few years have been quite rough on them, to put it politely. They were down 25% in 2009 according to our hedge fund performance numbers post. However, as of the recent performance data, they were still up 210% since inception.
In the past, we’ve posted up some of Clarium’s research and have been impressed with the ideas and viewpoints expressed. However, it seems that they have had issues with market timing and converting those ideas into tradeable strategies. For more on this hedge fund, you can check out our Clarium coverage.
Additionally, we learn that Brevan Howard’s flagship fund is down 0.53% year-to-date. As far as we’re aware, it is Europe’s largest fund at £13.3 billion. Keep in mind that many of these gentlemen of course graced the recently updated Forbes’ billionaire list so they’ve certainly made plenty of money in the past. That said, their recent performance is not necessarily what you’d expect in an environment many have deemed as ripe with global macro opportunity.
Hedge Fund 2009 Performance Numbers
Jan 14th
It’s time to check in on how prominent hedge funds performed in the year of 2009. Don’t forget that in the past we also presented a comprehensive post on 2008 hedge fund performance numbers if you wanted to cross-reference. A big hat tip goes out to the anonymous investors and readers who sent us hedge fund letters, Dealbreaker, & Marketwatch for all providing data.
Without further ado, let’s check out how major hedge funds fared this past year:
Hennessee Hedge Fund Index: +24.85%
S&P 500: +26.5%
John Paulson’s firm Paulson & Co
Advantage Fund: +13.75%
Advantage Plus Fund: +21%
Credit Opportunities Fund: +34%
Recovery Fund: +24.2%
Mohnish Pabrai: Pabrai Investment Funds
PIF2: +122.5%
PIF3: +125%
PIF4: +118.8%
Och Ziff Capital Management
Master Fund: +23%
Asia Master Fund: +33.6%
Global Special Investments Master Fund: +8.3%
European Fund: +16.3%
David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital
Offshore Fund: +30.6%
Dan Loeb’s Third Point LLC
Offshore Fund: +38.6%
Partners Fund: +38.2%
Partners Qualified Fund: +33.3%
Ultra Fund: +44.2%
Peter Thiel’s Clarium Capital
Fund: -25%
Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital Group
International Fund: +66%
Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital
International Fund: +28.39%
Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group
Kensington Fund: +61.84%
Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners
Partners Fund: +46.55%
David E. Shaw’s D.E. Shaw & Co
Oculus Fund: +8.7%
Composite Fund: +21.1%
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates
Pure Alpha II Fund: +2.00%
George Soros’ hedge fund Soros Fund Management
Quantum Endowment Fund: +28%
Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp
BVI Global Fund: +16.51%
Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management
Global Fund: +20.6%
Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Associates
Global Fund: +6.15%
Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management
Atlas Global Fund: +8.64%
So, 2009 performance results look to be the polar opposite of 2008 results for some firms. Many notable firms who performed poorly in 2008 did well this past year and have surpassed their high water mark including David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital, and Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners, among others.
Sticking with the theme of polar outcomes, we want to turn our focus to the tale of two hedge funds. Mohnish Pabrai’s hedge fund firm Pabrai Investment Funds executed extremely well over the course of last year as all of his funds returned in excess of 118%, beating the S&P 500 by a wide margin. Global macro fund manager Peter Thiel on the other hand, got beat up by the S&P 500 by a wide margin. His Clarium Capital was -25% for the year and lost 10% in December alone. The struggles continue for his hedge fund as they’ve lost money two years in a row now.
While Clarium often has thorough and insightful research, we’ve questioned whether their philosophical thoughts can be translated into executable trading strategies. Maybe they have suffered from market timing or investment vehicle selection missteps, who knows. What we do know though, is that they need to turn things around. Clarium does not charge a management fee and as such their firm’s revenue is reliant on a performance fee (a.k.a. market outperformance). Since they haven’t outperformed much recently, they haven’t earned much money. Thiel is sticking with his venture though and the firm made enough money from their strong prior years in order to stay in operation. Assets under management at Clarium are now at $1.33 billion, way down from their peak of $7.3 billion.
Now that you’ve seen how many of the biggest names in hedge fund land have fared, make sure to also check out which stocks boosted their gains in a list of the top ten stocks owned by hedge funds. Additionally, head over to our compilation of 2008 hedge fund performance numbers if you want to compare how funds did on a year over year basis. Many thanks to those of you who helped compile this list. If you’ve got more prominent hedge fund performance numbers for 2009, comment below or send them our way:
Frontrunning: January 11
Jan 11th
- Federal Reserve seeks to block release of U.S. bailout secrets (Bloomberg)
- Dubai’s first foreclosure may open floodgates in worst market: Dubai’s housing rout sent prices
down 52 percent in the past year, prompting some homeowners to
abandon their cars and mortgage payments and flee the country.
Not one received a foreclosure notice. Until now. (Bloomberg) - Geithner has support of Obama, Democratis lawmakers, aides say (Bloomberg)
- Trichet may signal central bankers’ risk concern: European Central Bank
President Jean-Claude Trichet, who warned investors against taking on
too much risk two years before the financial crisis started, may be
about to sound the alert again.( Bloomberg) - Bernanke bond spread most since 2007 shows decoupling (Bloomberg)
- Financial crisis panel seeks bankers’ testimony (WaPo)
- Disappointment ahead for UK – and big test for euro (TimesOnline)
- Goldman weighs expanding charity program (Reuters)
- Alwaleed, whose own Kingdom Holdings business empire is crumbling, can’t help but be optimistic about his core Citi holding (Bloomberg)
- Why Wall Street pay is so high (Forbes)
- TCW doubles down on disaster (MarketWatch)
- Recession generation will make less and save more (Newsweek)
- Hudson institute weekly economic report (Hudson)
- Samuelson: The numbers behind our daily lives (RCM)
- Citi unit grows – with Feds’ help (WSJ)
- Peter Thiel’s hedge fund falls 25% in 2009 (Post)
