The Morning Brief: A Banner Year (So Far) for Highbridge

Highbridge Capital Corporation is seemingly on its way to its best year in a few years. The flagship multistrategy fund from New York–based Highbridge Capital Management is up 8.45 percent through June. Gains have come from its Asia strategy, convertibles, relative value credit and fundamental equities. The firm, founded by childhood friends Glenn Dubin and Henry Swieca, is now headed by Scott Kapnick, who serves as chief executive officer.

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Commodity trading advisors and other managed futures funds are scooping up new money this year. According to data tracker Eurekahedge, total assets in the strategy have grown by 10.86 percent this year thanks in large part to capital inflows totaling $20 billion.

This is the largest amount that investors have poured into the strategy in the first half of a year since 2008, when CTAs enjoyed their shining moment, posting strong gains while most other hedge funds fell or collapsed amid the global financial crisis. CTAs are not faring so well this year, however. As we recently reported, The Newedge CTA Index fell 4.20 percent in June and was down 2.28 percent for the first half of the year.

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Michael Novogratz’s Fortress Macro Fund continues to struggle. The hedge fund, managed by New York-based Fortress Investment Group, lost another 3.80 percent in June alone, bringing its decline for the year to 10.6 percent. It lost 1.6 percent in 2014.

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Leon Cooperman’s Omega Overseas, managed by New York-based Omega Advisors, lost 1.90 percent in June, cutting the fund’s gain for the year to 4.40 percent.

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Daniel Och’s OZ Management, managed by New York-based multistrategy firm Och-Ziff Capital Management, disclosed that it owns about 3.3 million shares of Bitauto Holdings, or 5.22 percent of the provider of Internet services for China’s auto industry. Och-Ziff, which has a dedicated fund specializing in Asian securities, did not own any shares of Bitauto at the end of the first quarter.

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