• Money managers most bearish on silver in almost 2 years: CFTC
• Platinum net-short position reached a record as car sales slow

Gold is out of favor with money managers and it’s not the only precious metal facing investor exodus.

Hedge funds and other large speculators are hitting the exit as they brace for monetary tightening in the U.S. and Western Europe. Money managers are not waiting around for signs that the Federal Reserve may change its rate trajectory, as they turn bearish on precious metals. These charts show the trend in sentiment…

• Ad hoc group holds $3.3 billion of commonwealth debt
• Puerto Rico owes $13 billion of general-obligation debt

A group of hedge funds that owns $3.3 billion of Puerto Rico bonds disclosed in court documents the amount that each of them holds.

The disclosure is related to the territory’s May 3 bankruptcy, which will allow Puerto Rico and its agencies to reduce the $74 billion of debt left after years of economic decline and borrowing to cover operating expenses. The group includes distressed-debt buyers and municipal mutual fund Franklin Mutual Advisers LLC.

• Hedge funds in the region are among world’s top performers
• Greenwoods, Springs, SPQ China Funds gained more than 20%

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China-focused hedge funds bounced back from their worst performance in five years and trounced global counterparts.

After an annual loss last year, Greater China hedge funds added more than 13 percent on average in the first half of 2017 to rank among the top-performing strategies in the world, according to preliminary data from Eurekahedge. Hedge funds from Greenwoods Asset Management, Springs Capital and SPQ Asia Capital were among standout performers with gains of 20 percent or more…

• Pound drop ‘dangerous’ for U.K. retailers: hedge fund manager
• Central banks ending QE will impact credit cycle, Odey writes

Crispin Odey, who made money for a second straight month by sticking to bearish equity bets, said the chance of a market crash is rising as growth slows and the Federal Reserve normalizes interest rates.

The credit cycle boosted by loose monetary policy has peaked and there’s a widespread slowdown in the auto, commodity, industrial and retail sectors, Odey wrote in a letter to investors. Unlike previous dips since the financial crisis, central banks aren’t responding by printing more money…

• hirty-year Treasury yield breaks through 50-, 200-DMA
• Speculators that went bullish the long end getting flushed out

Hedge funds that built up bullish long-end Treasury wagers to the highest outright level since 2008 are rushing for the exit as a government bond rout that started in Europe following a weak French debt auction is spreading to the U.S. market.

• Trump administration could rewrite some Dodd-Frank regulation
• Low liquidity and volatility means hard slog for macro funds

Traders who fled banks for hedge funds are on their way back to Wall Street.

This month, Barclays Plc hired Chris Leonard, a founder of two hedge funds in the decade since he left JPMorgan Chase & Co., to turn around U.S. rates trading. At the end of last year, ex-bankers Roberto Hoornweg and Chris Rivelli, both of Brevan Howard Asset Management, left that London hedge fund for banks.

• Trustee kept $90 million owed to investors in 20 securities
• Money held to cover legal costs related to financial crisis

Wells Fargo & Co. surprised investors this week by withholding more than $90 million due to buyers of pre-crisis residential mortgage-backed securities.

The bank said it invoked its right as trustee to hold back funds to cover legal costs. The 20 transactions had a principal balance of $540 million and are among more than 2,000 deals involved in a lawsuit brought by bondholders including BlackRock Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co. in 2014 to recover losses from the financial crisis.

• Implied volatility surges for 1-week Australian dollar options
• Volatility picking up around RBA, Riksbank policy meetings

Speculators looking to profit from the hawkish shift among global central banks have a fresh target: the Australian dollar.

With the pound, euro and Canadian loonie all surging more than 2 percent this week after officials signaled a bias toward tightening monetary policy, hedge funds are piling into Aussie options on expectations the Reserve Bank of Australia will follow suit. Implied volatility contracts with a tenor of one week surged to 8.0975 Thursday, the highest since June 14. Speculators added almost $1.5 billion of options on the Australian currency at a strike price of 77 U.S. cents, DTCC data show…

• SocGen sees changing dynamics in producer and consumer hedging
• Lower oil prices may deter future shale oil investments

The past month’s plunge in oil prices has turned the market for hedging upside down.

Oil producers have scaled back locking in future prices “considerably” since February, Societe Generale SA said in a report, citing a shift in options pricing driven by consumer companies like shippers and airlines. Late last year, sellers including U.S. shale drillers locked in prices in droves when benchmarks rose after OPEC announced plans to cut production.

• Quantitative investment funds have record $500 billion assets
• Performance varies, but average quant fund is flat this year

Believe the hype. Quants have never been more popular.

After doubling over the past decade, assets run by so-called systematic funds have hit a record $500 billion this year, according to estimates from Barclays Plc.

In some ways, their meteoric rise is due to the same technological advances that are disrupting most industries. Faster computers and better data has enabled asset managers to automate skills that once were limited to market legends…

Rise of Robots: Inside the World’s Fastest Growing Hedge Funds

• 74,300 block of call options purchased on Tuesday morning
• Strategist suggests buy linked to June VIX options expiry

50 Cent spent roughly $3.8 million hedging against a selloff in risk assets this morning.

Not the rapper — the mysterious volatility buyer or buyers who earned the moniker due to their penchant for buying huge lots of VIX call options priced at roughly a half-dollar apiece.

The CBOE Volatility Index, known as the VIX or fear index, has remained at historically low levels for years. Explanations for the prolonged period of market tranquility have ranged from central bank largesse to the growth of social media…

• Ben Jacobs and Ning Jin to become co-CIOs, firm says in letter
• Sundheim to pursue own entrepreneurial interests, firm says

Viking Global Investors, the hedge fund firm founded by Andreas Halvorsen, is returning about $8 billion to investors as Chief Investment Officer Daniel Sundheim departs to pursue his own business interests.

Sundheim, 40, who joined Viking as an analyst and rose through the ranks in his 15 years there, is leaving at the end of the month, according to a letter Viking sent to investors on Monday. Ben Jacobs and Ning Jin, two long-time portfolio managers, will take over the central portfolio as co-CIOs, the firm said…

Have you ever watched an adult cat stare at a human baby and wondered what it could possibly be thinking? Well thanks to Ray Dalio’s ineffably beautiful LinkedIn blog, we may be able to answer that.

Naturally, my inclinations are to view Donald Trump’s policies through the lens of one who thinks about economies and markets, as well as from my vantage point of being a global and US citizen. My perspectives are colored by studying patterns and the cause-effect relationships of history and nature. My inclinations are to view things in a mechanistic way and to try to express the cause-effect relationships in principles and algorithms. While most cause-effect relationships can be expressed that way, not all can. Human nature is one that is difficult to express this way, and it is uniquely important now in Donald Trump’s presidency.

Also bribery, market structure, VIX, unicorns, lunching and learning and the Bowling Green menagerie.

Jobs for RMBS bankers.

Why do we fine banks lots of money for doing bad things? The fines are more or less paid by the shareholders, and it’s not like the shareholders did the bad things. But in theory, the shareholders don’t want to be fined, so they will hire directors who don’t want to be fined, who will hire executives who don’t want to be fined, who will hire employees who don’t do bad things. The banks are supposed to be integrated rational economic actors that want to avoid fines, and so the fines should deter them from hiring people who will do the things that incur fines…

• Net-long position on WTI rose by most this year: CFTC
• U.S. supply drop will be key to sustaining the enthusiasm

Hedge funds are giving OPEC some credit again.

Following four weeks of growing pessimism, bets on rising West Texas Intermediate prices jumped the most this year just as Saudi Arabia and Russia were mustering support for the deal they struck in Vienna last week, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.

What happens to U.S. stockpiles will be key to sustaining the enthusiasm, and the Saudis know that. In addition to prolonging a historical deal with allies, the kingdom plans to reduce exports to the world’s biggest consumer…

• Hong Kong hedge funds are leaving Central as Chinese move in
• It’s hard to hire top talent if you’re ‘sitting in a shoebox’

Benjamin Fuchs raised eyebrows five years ago when he opened his hedge fund next to a place selling live chickens in Hong Kong’s hustling, bustling Tin Hau neighborhood.

It was akin to choosing Queens over Manhattan in New York — or lowly Croydon over moneyed Mayfair in London.

But nowadays Fuchs is no outlier. He’s part of a swelling exodus of hedge funds from the tony confines of Hong Kong’s Central district, home to luxury landmarks like the Mandarin Oriental hotel…

• Hong Kong hedge funds are leaving Central as Chinese move in
• It’s hard to hire top talent if you’re ‘sitting in a shoebox’

Benjamin Fuchs raised eyebrows five years ago when he opened his hedge fund next to a place selling live chickens in Hong Kong’s hustling, bustling Tin Hau neighborhood.

It was akin to choosing Queens over Manhattan in New York — or lowly Croydon over moneyed Mayfair in London.

But nowadays Fuchs is no outlier. He’s part of a swelling exodus of hedge funds from the tony confines of Hong Kong’s Central district, home to luxury landmarks like the Mandarin Oriental hotel…

It was one of the most bitter battles between a company and a hedge fund in years, a fight rife with insults and innuendo — and it ultimately led to a chief executive’s ouster.

But on Monday, with days to go before Arconic shareholders met to vote on directors, the industrial parts maker settled its monthslong dispute with the activist investor Elliott Management.

The pact ends what had been an intensely watched proxy fight on Wall Street, at a time when much of corporate America has accepted shareholder activists — investors who prod companies for changes in strategy — as a way of life…

Paul Tudor Jones, the founder of Tudor Investment Corp., has invested in two artificial-intelligence startups as the money manager expands into strategies that employ big data.

The hedge fund manager has invested in CargoMetrics Technologies, an investment firm that uses tools such as satellite signals and shipping data to trade commodities, currencies and equity futures, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. He’s also backed Numerai, a San Francisco-based hedge fund that makes wagers using anonymously submitted models, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private…

Will the third time be the charm for Jon S. Corzine?

Mr. Corzine won a United States Senate seat after being maneuvered out of Goldman, eventually moving on to become governor of New Jersey. After losing the governorship to Chris Christie, he took over MF Global, which collapsed in 2011.

Now, Mr. Corzine, 70, is planning his next act: a hedge fund tailored to take advantage of the chaos of the Trump era.

In his first interview since the MF Global meltdown began, Mr. Corzine said that he would seek to anticipate how the Trump administration and other world leaders would enact policy…

• Reduced positions in the country’s stocks by $800 million
• Itau Unibanco remains the most popular holding among funds

It looks like a smart move in retrospect.

U.S. hedge funds reduced equity holdings tied to Brazil by about a net total of $800 million from the start of the year to end of March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The profit taking came after a 69 percent surge in Brazil’s benchmark stock index last year.

• As the trio rallied, they missed almost $600 million in profit
• The misfortune may add pressure on manager performance

The rally in America’s biggest technology companies is making the smart money look dumb.

In a quarter when Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. rose three times as fast as the market, regulatory filings show hedge funds were net sellers of a combined 7.5 million shares. On paper, that’s $600 million of lost upside since March 31, since each stock has kept rising…

Tech Stocks Surge as Hedge Funds Bail Out

• Facebook tops list of stocks getting the most new investments
• Many of the hedge fund darlings have been involved with deals

The favorite new bets by hedge funds ranged from the predictable Facebook Inc. to the less known VCA Inc., a pet-service provider.

Many companies attracting the most hedge fund money in the first quarter have either agreed to deals or closed them. Dow Chemical’s $78 billion merger with DuPont Co. is expected to close in August. Liberty Media Corp. purchased Formula 1 in January, Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. agreed to buy Reckitt Benckiser Group during the first quarter, and T-Mobile US Inc. has been in preliminary talks to merge with Sprint Corp…

• Commonwealth’s pension systems set to go broke this year
• Island’s $123 billion bankruptcy biggest in municipal history

The message in Puerto Rico is blunt: pay us, not Wall Street.

Anger over the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history has centered on the urgent question of public pensions. Puerto Rico has promised its workers and retirees $49 billion in benefits, but it’s guaranteed bondholders even more.

The pension system is scheduled to run out of money as soon as July, and many on the island fear, with benefit cuts already under discussion, that the hedge funds who own one-third of the commonwealth’s bonds will wrangle a better deal than ordinary Puerto Ricans…

U.S. prosecutors are investigating one of Wall Street’s darkest markets, focusing on hedge funds suspected of inflating the value of debt securities in their portfolios to juice the fees they collect.

Having prosecuted traders who lied to customers about bond prices, the government is now scrutinizing hedge funds that allegedly solicited bogus price quotes from brokers, according to three people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified. Such a practice would have enabled the funds to pump up the value of illiquid securities on their books…

Hedge Funds Are Facing a U.S. Criminal Probe Over Bond Valuations

Carl C. Icahn, the billionaire activist investor, was once known for causing consternation in the boardroom. Now, he is the source of much hand-wringing on Capitol Hill.

On Tuesday, eight Democratic senators led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called for a federal investigation into whether Mr. Icahn violated laws against insider trading and market manipulation in his role as a special adviser to President Trump.

In a letter addressed to current and acting heads of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, the senators raised questions about Mr. Icahn’s majority investment in CVR Energy, an oil refiner…

• Money managers least bullish on WTI crude in five months
• Longs fell, shorts surged just before oil took near 5% tumble

Hedge funds jumped out of the oil market just in time.

Before West Texas Intermediate crude nosedived on Thursday, wiping out the rally driven by OPEC’s deal, money managers slashed bets on rising prices by 20 percent, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Now they may soon be well poised to start betting on the next rally.

• Money managers least bullish on WTI crude in five months
• Longs fell, shorts surged just before oil took near 5% tumble

Hedge funds jumped out of the oil market just in time.

Before West Texas Intermediate crude nosedived on Thursday, wiping out the rally driven by OPEC’s deal, money managers slashed bets on rising prices by 20 percent, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Now they may soon be well poised to start betting on the next rally.

For investors having a last-minute wobble about whether they’re hedged for France’s presidential election, overnight volatility on the euro versus the dollar shows options are relatively cheap. Deutsche Bank AG estimates the pair would tumble by 3 to 6 percent at the open if far-right candidate Marine Le Pen were to win, given her open discussions about abandoning the euro and the fact that few people are positioned for this outcome, meaning the effect would be magnified…

Euro Options Offer Cheap Last-Minute Hedge for Le Pen Win: Chart

• Dentists, plumbers add more value in aggregate, CEO says
• Billionaire advocates index strategy for most investors

Warren Buffett isn’t done criticizing hedge-fund managers for wasting clients’ money.

At the annual meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. he again pressed the argument that, in aggregate, investment professionals aren’t worth their fees — and that people would be better off sticking their money in a low-cost index fund. He also challenged how hedge fund managers are paid.