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Market Folly submits:While we typically cover investments hedge funds make in public companies, we like to keep an eye on investments made in private companies as well. The reason? A potential lead to secular themes that investment firms are targeting. Case in point: hedge fund Tiger Global and its portfolio of web properties. According to Russian newspaper Vedomosti, Chase Coleman's hedge fund has paid $10 million for a 40% stake in Anywayanyday.com, an online ticket booking site in Russia. The site is owned by an affiliate of Valars, a grain trading company also based in Russia. The website currently garners around 3% of the Russian online airline ticket sales market and sees yearly revenue of around $5 million. The company is also planning to 'revitalize' its presence in the hotel booking segment as well.Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:Market strategist Jeff Saut is out with his latest investment commentary entitled, "Don't bet the farm." In it, he lays out some basic risk management principles. The first of which, obviously, is to not bet the proverbial farm on any one scenario, no matter how good it looks. Managing downside risk is the key to success in markets. Louis Bacon, famed hedge fund manager at Moore Capital, will be the first to tell you that. Saut also believes that portfolio rebalancing is one of the tenets of successful investing. This whole conversation is an extension of his commentary last week where proclaimed risk adjusted stock selection is a key to portfolio success. You can read his entire investment strategy for the rest of his thoughts on risk management but we wanted to touch on his latest market thoughts as well. Saut highlights an excerpt from Lowry's Selling Pressure Index, who writes,Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:We're pleased to present the second quarter 2010 commentary from East Coast Asset Management. The letter, penned by Chief Investment Officer Christopher Begg, touches on a number of intriguing and hotly debated topics, including inflation. Some of you will recall that we featured some past commentary from East Coast where the hedge fund examined the deflation-reflation continuum. East Coast is decisively in the inflationist camp. It believes that central banks armed with printing presses can only lead to one outcome. Its portfolio is positioned to mitigate the effects of any tail risk events such as hyperinflation, a bond bubble, a spike in interest rates, paper currency debasement, and a double dip recession. You'll recall that Baupost Group's Seth Klarman has also protected his portfolio from tail risk events as a form of cheap insurance. Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:We're pleased to present the second quarter 2010 commentary from East Coast Asset Management. The letter, penned by Chief Investment Officer Christopher Begg, touches on a number of intriguing and hotly debated topics, including inflation. Some of you will recall that we featured some past commentary from East Coast where the hedge fund examined the deflation-reflation continuum. East Coast is decisively in the inflationist camp. It believes that central banks armed with printing presses can only lead to one outcome. Its portfolio is positioned to mitigate the effects of any tail risk events such as hyperinflation, a bond bubble, a spike in interest rates, paper currency debasement, and a double dip recession. You'll recall that Baupost Group's Seth Klarman has also protected his portfolio from tail risk events as a form of cheap insurance. Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:East Coast Asset Management is out with an in-depth presentation on Becton Dickinson (BDX). The hedge fund lays out the bullish case for the company and assume that if you hold it for three years that an internal rate of return (IRR) on BDX if purchased now would be 17.6% annualized. This is not the first time we've covered commentary from this firm as we previously highlighted its deflation-reflation continuum debate. We're excited to bring you East Coast's latest market commentary as well as its presentation on Becton Dickinson. So, how does the hedge fund come to this conclusion on BDX? Let's first start with the thesis behind this play. Anant Ahuja, Christopher Begg, and Jack McManus have laid out the model for East Coast Asset Management and point out that Becton Dickinson is a niche business with a diverse set of products aimed at capitalizing on the increasing amount of aging baby boomers. Shares have been under pressure due to concerns over exposure to Europe, weak 2009 sales, and unfavorable foreign exchange trends.Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:East Coast Asset Management is out with an in-depth presentation on Becton Dickinson (BDX). The hedge fund lays out the bullish case for the company and assume that if you hold it for three years that an internal rate of return (IRR) on BDX if purchased now would be 17.6% annualized. This is not the first time we've covered commentary from this firm as we previously highlighted its deflation-reflation continuum debate. We're excited to bring you East Coast's latest market commentary as well as its presentation on Becton Dickinson. So, how does the hedge fund come to this conclusion on BDX? Let's first start with the thesis behind this play. Anant Ahuja, Christopher Begg, and Jack McManus have laid out the model for East Coast Asset Management and point out that Becton Dickinson is a niche business with a diverse set of products aimed at capitalizing on the increasing amount of aging baby boomers. Shares have been under pressure due to concerns over exposure to Europe, weak 2009 sales, and unfavorable foreign exchange trends.Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:Perry Capital is out with its second quarter letter and in it we see some intriguing portfolio news. Perry Partners International exited its entire equity position in Citigroup (C) in the second quarter. While the hedge fund still thinks it is an "interesting leveraged play on worldwide economic recovery", Perry feels it had to take the position off due to price appreciation and renewed concerns regarding financial reform, among other things. This news becomes all the more interesting when you consider that Dan Loeb's hedge fund Third Point sold out of Citigroup in the first quarter. At the same time, Bill Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square started a new stake in Citi. Such a divergence of prominent minds is what makes a market. Perry ended the second quarter up 1.87% and is up 9.08% net year to date versus a -11.4% performance for the S&P 500. Some of its largest winning positions on the quarter included short European exposure, as well as investments in Chrysler and Barneys. In the second quarter, Perry also reduced its structured credit investment asComplete Story »

Market Folly submits:In the past, we've highlighted hedge fund Lansdowne Partners' short positions. This time around, we get word that they've actually covered one of these stakes. Due to trading activity on the 5th of July, 2010, Lansdowne has reduced their short in Old Mutual plc (LON: OML, ODMTY.PK) to below the regulatory disclosure threshold of -0.25% of shares. Back in November 2009, Lansdowne's short in OML accounted for -0.49% of shares. Then, on July 1st, 2010 Lansdowne reduced it to -0.31% and now it has crossed below the -0.25% threshold.It is entirely possible that Steven Heinz and Paul Ruddock's hedge fund still maintain a short position. The problem is, we won't know now as it's fallen below disclosure levels. Based on the pattern of their reduction though, it seems clear that they've been aggressive in ratcheting down this stake. Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:Today we present you the latest market commentary and current outlook from Crispin Odey, founding partner and portfolio manager at Odey Asset Management, one of the premier and widely regarded U.K.-based hedge funds. Odey currently manages around $5 billion for institutions, endowments, private banks and individuals. Crispin founded the firm in 1991 with a focus on preserving capital and generating superior returns.In terms of recent results, we saw in our May hedge fund performance update that Odey was down 10.96% in the month of May alone. Crispin addresses this and other topics in his most recent commentary:Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:Due to activity on June 17th, 2010, Balyasny Asset Management has disclosed an updated stake in InterMune (ITMN). Dmitry Balyasny's hedge fund firm now shows a 5.49% ownership stake in ITMN with 3,040,200 shares. This is a massive increase in the hedge fund's position size because back on March 31st, 2010, Balyasny owned only 350,000 shares of InterMune. This means that somewhere over the course of the past three months, Balyasny has added 2,690,200 additional shares (over a 768% increase in its position size). It's impossible for us to know when exactly Balyasny Asset Management purchased its shares. This information becomes crucial, however, when you consider that InterMune precipitously dropped from $45 to around $12 back in early May. This huge decline was mainly due to InterMune's failure to receive FDA approval for one of its lung drugs. This is a stock we've seen owned by some other prominent hedge funds in our coverage. Back in early April, we noted Steven Cohen's SAC Capital disclosed an ITMN position. And previously, we detailed how Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global started a new position in InterMune back in the first quarter.Complete Story »