Bridgewater Associates boosted its bet on emerging markets stocks in the third quarter. The Westport, Connecticut-based macro firm, which regularly devotes a vast majority of its U.S. long stock portfolio to three exchange-traded funds that track broad markets, boosted this exposure to more than 79 percent in the September period, from 73 percent in the second quarter. In addition, it lifted its stake in its largest position — a Vanguard ETF that tracks the FTSE emerging markets index — by 14 percent. It also nearly doubled its position in an ETF that tracks the MSCI emerging markets index.
Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund firm, also lifted its stake in an ETF that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index. To put these positions into perspective, however, Bridgewater’s overall U.S. equity portfolio had about $10 billion, up about 25 percent from the previous quarter. However, altogether the firm manages $150 billion in hedge fund and non-hedge fund assets.
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Leon Cooperman, who is facing civil insider trader charges, seems to have stabilized his asset base. His New York-based Omega Advisors reports it had $4.6 billion under management as of October 31. “A significant amount of personal general partner capital” is invested in the Omega funds, the firm notes on its website. As of August 31, Omega had $5.4 billion under management. In September, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Cooperman and his firm of trading while in possession of insider information. As of the end of the third quarter, Omega Overseas Partners had gained 2.5 percent for the year.
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Carl Icahn bought another one million shares or so of Herbalife, boosting his stake to 24.18 percent. The stock had hit a high of $68 in late July. Of course, Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management continues to have a huge negative bet on the marketer of nutrition and health care products. The stock closed at $55.02, essentially unchanged.
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The average hedge fund lost 0.76 percent in October, the first decline since January, according to data tracker eVestment. This trimmed the gain for the year to 3.70 percent. Distressed hedge funds were the top performers last month, gaining 2.06 percent, bringing their performance for the year to 9.96 percent. What’s more, eVestment points out that many distressed funds are up more than 15 percent this year. This prosperity is a reversal of the loss of 7.76 percent suffered by the strategy last year. On the other hand, event-driven funds lost 1.69 percent last month but are still up 4.64 percent for the year.
