The Morning Brief: Citadel Trims Back Offices; JC Penney Shares Drop Like A, Um, Penny

Kenneth Griffin’s Citadel is cutting 25 to 30 jobs as part of a plan to consolidate certain support and technology staff tied to the firm's automated trading operations. Among those losing their job is senior managing director Matt Cushman, Reuters reported.

Separately, Citadel reported it owns 5.1 percent of Buffalo Wild Wings.
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Alan Howard’s BH Macro fund was up 2.27 percent in February, bringing its full-year gains to 3.30 percent. Howard typically underperforms the broad market during bullish periods, however.
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Yikes! Shares of JC Penney dropped — briefly — to a 12-year low, before closing at $14.41, down 3.68 percent. The stock has already lost one-third of its value in just the past week.
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Call this “Say-onara” on pay. Senior traders at UBS O’Connor, a $6 billion hedge fund unit of the Swiss bank, are said to be looking for new jobs due to dissatisfaction with their cash bonuses. It seems UBS has decided to pay its hedge fund executives the way it compensates the rest of the bank’s employees. As a result, some bonuses reportedly were cut in half, and some deferred pay is being tied to five-year UBS bonds rather than reinvested in O’Connor vehicles, Bloomberg News said.