Rough July for Macro Funds ~ market folly

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Rough July for Macro Funds

Oh, how the fruits of success can come back and force-feed you some humble pie. Many macro strategy hedge funds savored their gains during the first half of the year as their large bets on long energy, short financials paid them off handsomely. July, on the other hand, was a different story. As oil retreated and numerous financials rallied, macro funds took it on the chin.

Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital was -6.8% for the month of July (hat tip JimPunkRockford). But, fanboys will be quick to point out that his fund is still up over 45% year to date.

Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital was -16% for July (via BusinessWeek) as their large concentrated bets on energy and commodities (specifically Cleveland Cliffs - CLF) blew up in their face. But, once again, fanboys will be quick to point out that they are still up over 23% year to date.

This all when the S&P500 is roughly -14% over the exact same time frame. But, its all relative, right?


3 comments:

Mark said...

cool

I feel less stupid about my July now esp considering my inability to properly hedge.

Mark said...

did you see this? Tudor Jones and his disciple might split?

Funny to see even his disciple sick of trying to pick stocks in this market. I can imagine guys at any level trying to pick items on fundamentals sick of the reversals that happen nearly weekly if not daily

http://tinyurl.com/6hbdda

also a twitter story in Fortune you might like

market folly said...

i didnt see the wsj one but i saw the marketwatch article. that one made it sound like he was for sure leaving and spinning off his raptor funds as a separate entity