Herbalife tries to make nice with detractors. The nutrition-supplements company said it plans to post additional information on its website about its controversial distributor program to placate skeptics. The information will include gross compensation to distributors, number of distributors it had in 2012 at each of its various levels, and average gross payments. The stock, which is being heavily shorted by Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management, was mostly flat on Wednesday, closing at $35.79.
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Wednesday was not a good day for David Einhorn’s two high-profile shorts — until after the market closed. Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill surged 5.72 percent to $17.45 on triple its average volume after the Mexican food chain reported a 7.7 percent increase in fourth-quarter earnings. Earnings actually came in below expectations but revenues beat forecasts. Short covering may have also accounted for the price lift and heavy volume. Meanwhile, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters perked up 3 percent in Wednesday trading. However, the stock plunged around 10 percent in after hours trading, despite reporting higher earnings for the most recent quarter. According to CNBC, K-Cup sales came in below expectations and its forecast for revenue growth is below analysts’ expectations.
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Andrew Hall’s Astenbeck Commodities Fund II and Astenbeck Offshore Commodities Fund II each rose 4.43 percent in January. This exceeds the funds’s 3.41 percent return in all of 2012. “January has turned out to be a good month for most risky assets and our portfolio has benefitted accordingly,” Hall writes in a letter to investors dated February 1. Even so, he says, his biggest exposure, longer-dated oil, made a relatively modest contribution to the overall return. He also discloses that he maintained a small spread position in natural gas, modestly trimmed his equities position following the January and holds modest positions in gold and silver. “Both should benefit from low real interest rates and competitive currency devaluations,” Hall states in the letter.
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Alan Howard’s BH Macro rose less than 1 percent in January, making it the worst performing large macro fund for the month. The fund, positioned for a bearish environment, was up 3.86 percent in 2012. BH Macro invests substantially all of its assets in the ordinary shares of Brevan Howard Master Fund.
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The amount of capital invested in Asian hedge funds rose by $3.9 billion in the fourth quarter, thanks in part to a net inflow of $1.17 billion concentrated in Emerging Asia, according to HFR. Altogether, about $88.25 billion has been invested in Asian funds, the highest level since 2007. The total number of Asian hedge funds rose by 5.3 percent to nearly 1,150 at the end of 2012. Nearly one third of the Asian hedge funds are located in China, compared with 28.6 percent at the end of 2011. Singapore and Australia account for the second and third largest share, respectively, of Asian-domiciled fund locations, although their share of region’s total declined in 2012, HFR reports.
