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15 Hedge Fund Managers Made $23 Billion In 2020

15 Hedge Fund Managers Made $23 Billion In 2020

Some time in late 2020, a sellside analyst penned the term "K-shaped recovery" meant to describe a pandemic-stricken world in which while some 11 million people have (still) lost their jobs…

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15 Hedge Fund Managers Made $23 Billion In 2020

Some time in late 2020, a sellside analyst penned the term "K-shaped recovery" meant to describe a pandemic-stricken world in which while some 11 million people have (still) lost their jobs from the February high...

... others were making millions, and in some cases, billions.

For better or worse, the "K-shaped recovery" term stuck and nowhere is it more applicable than in an article from Bloomberg today which shows that just the 15 top hedge fund managers on Wall Street raked in a combined $23 billion in 2020. Using the contextual parlance of our times, that's "more than enough money, at going prices, to buy one GameStop, two AMC Entertainments and four Bed Bath & Beyonds. Not shares -- those darlings of the r/wallstreetbets crowd -– but the entire companies."

And while the staggering sum would have been sufficient to make these 15 individuals into billionaires from what they earned last year alone, that's a moot point since most of them were already billionaires.

As shown below, the biggest winner from the staggering market rally which soared from its March lows even as the broader economy sank, was Tiger Global's Chase Coleman, who gained $3 billion personally in 2020. His fund returned 48% after building substantial stakes in Zoom, Peloton and JD.com, a portfolio almost perfectly positioned for the pandemic. And yes, Coleman was already a billionaire heading into 2020.

Coleman’s fund returned 48% last year, earning him substantial fees. The majority of his gains, though, were from his stake in the fund. One of Tiger Global’s most successful bets was on Sunrun Inc., turning a $340 million investment in the solar-energy company into $1.5 billion.

Other Tiger Cubs that traditionally favor tech stocks, such as Coatue Management, Viking Global and D1 Capital, also made Bloomberg’s list.

A new entrant to the list was Bill Ackman - who was also a billionaire heading into 2020 - who made $1.3 billion after shorting credit markets at the start of 2020 and then betting on the recovery following a tearful appearance on CNBC.

Amusingly, the last name on the list - Gabe Plotkin - has made the headlines in recent weeks after his hedge fund Melvin Capital lost 53% of its assets on the Reddit short squeeze. Then again, with $846 million in 2020 earnings alone, we are confident Gabe will be ok.

At the same time, several "usual suspects" were conspicuously absent, including Ray Dalio, whose Bridgewater had a forgettable 2020 as his Pure Alpha II fund lost money for a second straight year (following a catastrophic August when the fund was down 18.6%) and for just the second time in two decades. Quant fund Two Sigma, another perennial winner, also missed the cut as volatile markets largely favored human stock-pickers.

Other fund managers would have also made the list, but the Bloomberg ranking only includes those who continue to manage money for outside investors. That's why Michael Platt, whose Bluecrest Capital Management returned 95% last year after it stopped managing outside money in 2015 (it since emerged that he was effectively frontrunning his outside clients), was excluded despite an estimated personal gain of $5 billion. Platt and others who manage money only for themselves face fewer restrictions than other asset managers, such as limits on leverage and risk.

The reason behind this unprecedented compensation  is simple: their hedge funds generated staggering returns, with the lowest 2020 P&L at 14% for TCI and RenTec as usual leading the list with a whopping 76% return for its employees-only Medallion fund (its public facing funds had a much worse resulting in $5 billion in redemptions after a "terrible" year).

“CEOs at Fortune 500 companies can go for years with miserable performance and it doesn’t affect their compensation,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “But hedge fund compensation is more tightly related to performance.”

As Bloomberg notes, "that 15 people -- all of them men -- could earn so much so quickly starkly illustrates the widening rift between the ultra-rich and everyone else at a time of heightened unemployment and division over the scope of government response."

But as long as the peasants also got $600 "stimmies" all is well.

The historic gains by a handful of Wall Street tians demonstrates “the disconnect between the stock market and the real economy,” said finance professor Reena Aggarwal, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Financial Markets & Policy. While high volatility and low interest rates buoyed hedge funds, much of the population struggled “with worries about health, jobs, mortgage payments and student loans,” she said.

But that's ok: as long as the government continues to provide guaranteed basic income "stimmies" of a few hundred bucks to the peasants to keep them placated, we doubt that anything will ever change and expect the gains for the "top 15" to be even bigger this year.

Tyler Durden Wed, 02/10/2021 - 17:25

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Government

Mike Pompeo Doesn’t Rule Out Serving In 2nd Trump Administration

Mike Pompeo Doesn’t Rule Out Serving In 2nd Trump Administration

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former Secretary…

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Mike Pompeo Doesn't Rule Out Serving In 2nd Trump Administration

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a new interview that he’s not ruling out accepting a White House position if former President Donald Trump is reelected in November.

“If I get a chance to serve and think that I can make a difference ... I’m almost certainly going to say yes to that opportunity to try and deliver on behalf of the American people,” he told Fox News, when asked during a interview if he would work for President Trump again.

I’m confident President Trump will be looking for people who will faithfully execute what it is he asked them to do,” Mr. Pompeo said during the interview, which aired on March 8. “I think as a president, you should always want that from everyone.”

Then-President Donald Trump (C), then- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L), and then-Vice President Mike Pence, take a question during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus at the White House in Washington on April 8, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

He said that as a former secretary of state, “I certainly wanted my team to do what I was asking them to do and was enormously frustrated when I found that I couldn’t get them to do that.”

Mr. Pompeo, a former U.S. representative from Kansas, served as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2018 before he was secretary of state from 2018 to 2021. After he left office, there was speculation that he could mount a Republican presidential bid in 2024, but announced that he wouldn’t be running.

President Trump hasn’t publicly commented about Mr. Pompeo’s remarks.

In 2023, amid speculation that he would make a run for the White House, Mr. Pompeo took a swipe at his former boss, telling Fox News at the time that “the Trump administration spent $6 trillion more than it took in, adding to the deficit.”

“That’s never the right direction for the country,” he said.

In a public appearance last year, Mr. Pompeo also appeared to take a shot at the 45th president by criticizing “celebrity leaders” when urging GOP voters to choose ahead of the 2024 election.

2024 Race

Mr. Pompeo’s interview comes as the former president was named the “presumptive nominee” by the Republican National Committee (RNC) last week after his last major Republican challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, dropped out of the 2024 race after failing to secure enough delegates. President Trump won 14 out of 15 states on Super Tuesday, with only Vermont—which notably has an open primary—going for Ms. Haley, who served as President Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

On March 8, the RNC held a meeting in Houston during which committee members voted in favor of President Trump’s nomination.

“Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump on his huge primary victory!” the organization said in a statement last week. “I’d also like to congratulate Nikki Haley for running a hard-fought campaign and becoming the first woman to win a Republican presidential contest.”

Earlier this year, the former president criticized the idea of being named the presumptive nominee after reports suggested that the RNC would do so before the Super Tuesday contests and while Ms. Haley was still in the race.

Also on March 8, the RNC voted to name Trump-endorsed officials to head the organization. Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote in Houston, and Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, was voted in as co-chair.

“The RNC is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th President of the United States,” Mr. Whatley told RNC members in a speech after being elected, replacing former chair Ronna McDaniel. Ms. Trump is expected to focus largely on fundraising and media appearances.

President Trump hasn’t signaled whom he would appoint to various federal agencies if he’s reelected in November. He also hasn’t said who his pick for a running mate would be, but has offered several suggestions in recent interviews.

In various interviews, the former president has mentioned Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, among others.

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 17:00

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International

Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and…

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Riley Gaines Explains How Women's Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and bewildering tunnel of social justice cultism?  Global events have been so frenetic that many people might not remember, but only a couple years ago Big Tech companies and numerous governments were openly aligned in favor of mass censorship.  Not just to prevent the public from investigating the facts surrounding the pandemic farce, but to silence anyone questioning the validity of woke concepts like trans ideology. 

From 2020-2022 was the closest the west has come in a long time to a complete erasure of freedom of speech.  Even today there are still countries and Europe and places like Canada or Australia that are charging forward with draconian speech laws.  The phrase "radical speech" is starting to circulate within pro-censorship circles in reference to any platform where people are allowed to talk critically.  What is radical speech?  Basically, it's any discussion that runs contrary to the beliefs of the political left.

Open hatred of moderate or conservative ideals is perfectly acceptable, but don't ever shine a negative light on woke activism, or you might be a terrorist.

Riley Gaines has experienced this double standard first hand.  She was even assaulted and taken hostage at an event in 2023 at San Francisco State University when leftists protester tried to trap her in a room and demanded she "pay them to let her go."  Campus police allegedly witnessed the incident but charges were never filed and surveillance footage from the college was never released.  

It's probably the last thing a champion female swimmer ever expects, but her head-on collision with the trans movement and the institutional conspiracy to push it on the public forced her to become a counter-culture voice of reason rather than just an athlete.

For years the independent media argued that no matter how much we expose the insanity of men posing as women to compete and dominate women's sports, nothing will really change until the real female athletes speak up and fight back.  Riley Gaines and those like her represent that necessary rebellion and a desperately needed return to common sense and reason.

In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan Podcast, Gaines related some interesting information on the inner workings of the NCAA and the subversive schemes surrounding trans athletes.  Not only were women participants essentially strong-armed by colleges and officials into quietly going along with the program, there was also a concerted propaganda effort.  Competition ceremonies were rigged as vehicles for promoting trans athletes over everyone else. 

The bottom line?  The competitions didn't matter.  The real women and their achievements didn't matter.  The only thing that mattered to officials were the photo ops; dudes pretending to be chicks posing with awards for the gushing corporate media.  The agenda took precedence.

Lia Thomas, formerly known as William Thomas, was more than an activist invading female sports, he was also apparently a science project fostered and protected by the athletic establishment.  It's important to understand that the political left does not care about female athletes.  They do not care about women's sports.  They don't care about the integrity of the environments they co-opt.  Their only goal is to identify viable platforms with social impact and take control of them.  Women's sports are seen as a vehicle for public indoctrination, nothing more.

The reasons why they covet women's sports are varied, but a primary motive is the desire to assert the fallacy that men and women are "the same" psychologically as well as physically.  They want the deconstruction of biological sex and identity as nothing more than "social constructs" subject to personal preference.  If they can destroy what it means to be a man or a woman, they can destroy the very foundations of relationships, families and even procreation.  

For now it seems as though the trans agenda is hitting a wall with much of the public aware of it and less afraid to criticize it.  Social media companies might be able to silence some people, but they can't silence everyone.  However, there is still a significant threat as the movement continues to target children through the public education system and women's sports are not out of the woods yet.   

The ultimate solution is for women athletes around the world to organize and widely refuse to participate in any competitions in which biological men are allowed.  The only way to save women's sports is for women to be willing to end them, at least until institutions that put doctrine ahead of logic are made irrelevant.          

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 17:20

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Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2024

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2024
A brief excerpt: This 2-part overview for mid-March provides a snapshot of the current housing market.

I always like to star…

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Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2024

A brief excerpt:
This 2-part overview for mid-March provides a snapshot of the current housing market.

I always like to start with inventory, since inventory usually tells the tale!
...
Here is a graph of new listing from Realtor.com’s February 2024 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report showing new listings were up 11.3% year-over-year in February. This is still well below pre-pandemic levels. From Realtor.com:

However, providing a boost to overall inventory, sellers turned out in higher numbers this February as newly listed homes were 11.3% above last year’s levels. This marked the fourth month of increasing listing activity after a 17-month streak of decline.
Note the seasonality for new listings. December and January are seasonally the weakest months of the year for new listings, followed by February and November. New listings will be up year-over-year in 2024, but we will have to wait for the March and April data to see how close new listings are to normal levels.

There are always people that need to sell due to the so-called 3 D’s: Death, Divorce, and Disease. Also, in certain times, some homeowners will need to sell due to unemployment or excessive debt (neither is much of an issue right now).

And there are homeowners who want to sell for a number of reasons: upsizing (more babies), downsizing, moving for a new job, or moving to a nicer home or location (move-up buyers). It is some of the “want to sell” group that has been locked in with the golden handcuffs over the last couple of years, since it is financially difficult to move when your current mortgage rate is around 3%, and your new mortgage rate will be in the 6 1/2% to 7% range.

But time is a factor for this “want to sell” group, and eventually some of them will take the plunge. That is probably why we are seeing more new listings now.
There is much more in the article.

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