This content is from: Portfolio

The 2016 Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Michael Wang

A knack for short selling has helped Wang to steer Cypress Funds through tough markets.

Michael Wang
Cypress Funds

For the first six months after Michael Wang joined hedge fund firm SAC Capital Advisors in 2007, his boss wouldn’t let him pick a long stock. All of Wang’s trading ideas had to be shorts. This discipline gave Wang, who came to Stamford, Connecticut–based SAC after two years doing mergers and acquisitions at Citigroup in New York, a great ability to sell short.

Taiwan-born Wang, 33, was three when he and his family moved to Southern California. In Taiwan his father had been an engineering professor and his mother had taught English, but in the U.S. they made their living by trading stocks and invested in real estate. That early exposure to the market kick-started Wang’s own interest: He became president of his high school investing club before heading east to attend New York University’s Stern School of Business, where he majored in finance with a minor in psychology.

Wang stayed at SAC until 2012, when Jason Karp, a former portfolio manager with the firm, recruited him to join Karp’s new outfit, New York–based long-short equity hedge fund Tourbillon Capital Partners. As day-one employee and a principal, Wang was contributing to Tourbillon’s success when an even more intriguing opportunity came his way: The Cypress Funds asked him to be portfolio manager and co–managing partner in the management company.

Los Angeles–based Cypress Funds might not be a household name, but its founder, and Wang’s co–managing partner, certainly is. The grandson of Superior Oil Co. founder William Myron Keck, Robert Day launched the firm in 1969; two years later he founded Trust Co. of the West. Day, 72, sold TCW to French bank Société Générale in 2001. Although he remained TCW chairman, a role he gave up only in 2013, he was bound by a noncompete agreement, so Cypress Funds was unable to raise outside capital. He stepped down from TCW after deciding to relaunch his hedge fund, which he did in 2014. Wang took over as portfolio manager in May 2015. Despite challenging markets, the fund, which currently manages about $400 million, is off to a positive start, helped by Wang’s short-selling prowess.

Visit the 2016 Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Ivy League Schools Pave the Way for more.

Hedge Fund Rising Stars of 2016

Jessye Ball
Millennium Mgmt
Sarah Berner
Aristeia Capital
Jenna Bussman-Wise
AIG Investments
Maureen Chang
Point72 Asset Mgmt
Dennis Chenfu
Pershing
Charles Dufresne Jr.
Sciens Capital Mgmt
William Freda
Graticule Asset Mgmt Asia
Samantha Greenberg
Margate Capital
Mark Gurevich
Ropes & Gray
Tal Gurion
Mariner Glen Oaks
Craig Huie
University of California
Yusef Kassim
Blue Harbour Group
Florian Kronawitter
White Square Capital
Vikram Kumar
TT International
Brandon Levin
Jana Partners
Jonathan Levin
George Weiss Associates
Brett Minarik
Aksia
Ian Monroe
Etho Capital
Jason Morrow
Utah Retirement Systems
Pierre-Adrien Nicolas
Squarepoint Capital
Jamie Pabst
Green Owl Capital Mgmt
Parag Pande
Blackstone Group
Agata Praczuk
MetLife
Max Saffian
Fortress Investment Group
Matt Satnick
MSD Partners
Eric Singer
Viex Capital Advisors
Katina Stefanova
Marto Capital
Reginald Tucker
New York State Common Retirement Fund
Michael Wang
Cypress Funds
Sean Wygovsky
Polar Asset Mgmt Partners

Related Content