Hedge Fund Video Library | 30+ Free Videos on Hedge Funds by Richard Wilson

Biggest Hedge Funds AUM

Biggest Hedge Funds AUM

Biggest Hedge Funds Continue to Increase AUM

Hedge fund investors are giving strong preference to the biggest hedge funds in the industry rather than new and smaller hedge funds. Bridgewater Associates was the biggest winner in fundraising for the first half of 2010, raising $7.3 billion. Industry analysts conclude that investors favor large ($5 billion AUM and more), long-established funds that have a proven investment strategy which investors trust.
U.S. hedge fund firms overseeing $5 billion or more saw their assets inch up 1 percent during the first half, according to the report. Among firms that manage only $1 billion or more, half said their asset levels either dropped or stayed unchanged.
Investors, including pension funds, currently appear more inclined to put money with large, long-established funds whose investment approach and risk management systems they trust, industry analysts have said.
Boasting $51 billion of assets, Bridgewater Associates, a 35-year-old fund firm founded by Ray Dalio, again ranked as the largest U.S. hedge fund as well as the industry's most popular, the magazine reported.
During the first half, the Westport, Connecticut-based firm took in $7.3 billion of new money, which boosted firm assets by nearly 17 percent. A year ago Bridgewater had $37 billion.  Source

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Hedge Funds Jack McDonald

Hedge Funds Jack McDonald

Jack McDonald Seeing More Start-Up Hedge Funds

While some reports are coming out about the industry losing assets our team is still seeing a strong showing of new hedge fund managers launching each month and the sales of our Start a Hedge Fund guide continues to be popular.  

Jack McDonald, president and chief executive officer at Conifer Securities LLC, says that he is also seeing more start-up hedge funds. Also, he believes that the fundraising environment for start-ups has gone from nearly impossible to just very difficult. Click here to watch the video interview with Jack McDonald.
Jack McDonald, president and chief executive officer of Conifer Securities LLC, talks about investment in hedge funds. McDonald also discusses the outlook for the industry, and hedge fund fees and strategies. He talks with Bloomberg's Matt Miller and Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." Watch video

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D.E. Shaw & Co Jobs

D.E. Shaw & Co Jobs

D.E. Shaw & Co. Cutting 150 Jobs After Asset Losses

D.E. Shaw & Co. lost more than half of its hedge fund assets since the financial crisis.  In response to the loss of assets, the hedge fund firm has decided to cut 150 jobs.  It is important because D.E. Shaw is one of the largest hedge funds and it has reduce 10% of its staff.
D.E. Shaw & Co. is cutting about 10% of its work force, among the largest cutbacks in recent memory among major hedge-fund firms. A pioneer in computer-driven investing, the firm in recent years expanded into other areas, such as real estate and private equity.
Firm-wide assets have fallen to about $21 billion from nearly $40 billion in 2008, according to a person familiar with the matter. Hedge-fund assets are down to $17 billion from about $35 billion.
"The D.E. Shaw group has taken steps to strengthen our business and maximize value for our investors over the long term," a spokesman said.
D.E. Shaw's returns have held up relatively well since the financial crisis. But some investors grew frustrated after the firm, in keeping with pre-existing terms for its funds, in 2008 prevented some clients from withdrawing all of their cash, according to a person familiar with the matter.  Source

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France EU Hedge Funds

France EU Hedge Funds

France to Block European Union Hedge Fund Regulations

Just when the European Union seemed to be getting close to agreement on hedge fund regulation, France is expected to block the proposal. European Union members have been trying to reach a compromise on the alternative investments directive. The French finance minister's expected refusal to back a plan that would give licenses to foreign funds to work in all of the EU's member states seems to have come as a surprise to diplomats.

France's finance minister Christine Lagarde is set to dash hopes of an imminent deal on EU hedge fund rules when she meets finance ministers in Brussels this week, said sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

France's refusal to back a scheme to give foreign funds a licence to do business across all of the EU's 27 states will scupper any chances of a deal between ministers on a new regime for the industry.

Lagarde, who sources close to the talks said had won the backing of Germany, will reaffirm this position at the meeting of finance ministers including Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble and British financial services chief Mark Hoban. Source

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Man Group Profits

Man Group Profits

Reduced Performance Fees Cut into Man Group's Profits

Perhaps it is a sign of what is to come for hedge funds, Man Group's profits took a hit from lower performance fees. Man Group, the largest publicly traded hedge fund firm, estimates that its profits for the six months ending September 30th to be 55% lower than last year. Man Group's performance fees 79% in the first half of 2010.
The world’s largest public-traded hedge fund firm said its estimated profit for the six months ended Sept. 30 would be 55% lower than last year at US$135 million. Performance fees fell 79% to £10 million in the first half.

The firm’s assets under management are likely to grow US$1 billion to US$39.5 in the three months to Sept. 30, although Man has suffered US$600 million in redemptions during the quarter.

“The last six months have seen further mixed macro signals across global economies and continued uncertainty in markets,” CEO Peter Clarke said. “It has therefore been pleasing to see Man’s investment strategies performing well in these difficult conditions.”

Man is buying hedge fund GLG Partners in a deal expected to close on Oct. 12. Source

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TradeStation Buy-Side Institutional Program

TradeStation’s NYSE Floor Operation Implements Buy-Side Institutional Program

Service Focuses on Floor Broker Parity and Transaction Pricing


New York, NY, September 28, 2010 – TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NYSE, FINRA, NFA and SIPC), through its TradeStation Prime Services division, recently launched its NYSE Floor operation, including its outsourced trading desk, to help meet the growing demand of hedge funds and other institutional clients who seek to enhance their transaction pricing while providing additional liquidity. The NYSE trading floor features a parity based model when allocating executions allowing market participants to operate a diverse strategy mix including both classic institutional order flow and higher frequency models.

As described by NYSE Euronext on its website, “The NYSE is the only market to offer both high-tech automation for low latency and complete anonymity along with high-touch participation by market professionals to provide orderly opens and closes, lower volatility, deeper liquidity and price improvement opportunities throughout the trading day. This unique combination provides customers with the highest levels of market quality and competitiveness...Brokers on the NYSE Trading Floor leverage their physical point-of sale-presence with information technologies and order management tools to offer customers the benefits of flexibility, judgment, automation and anonymity with minimal market impact.”

As a self-clearing, agency-only broker-dealer now with NYSE Floor capabilities, TradeStation can leverage this technology and its membership by offering, through their Floor Brokers, access to the NYSE Floor along with over 40 pools of liquidity away from NYSE. Active traders, including spread traders and derivatives traders can also integrate their trading strategies into algorithms that Floor Brokers access from their Hand Held Devices that are engineered specifically for the NYSE parity based model.

For additional information about TradeStation Prime Services, please visit:
http://www.tradestationprime.com/.

About TradeStation Prime Services, a division of TradeStation Securities, Inc.

     TradeStation Prime Services, a division of TradeStation Securities, Inc., was founded to serve the needs of start-up to mid-sized hedge funds, registered investment advisers, professional traders and asset managers who need quality prime brokerage services, including execution and clearance, securities lending, capital introduction, and “incubation” services.  Clients are offered electronic trading and decision-support platforms, including TradeStation, to analyze their trading strategies and automate or manually place their orders, and may avail themselves of the firm’s NYSE floor membership, which allows it to execute trades on behalf of clients on the NYSE floor as well as in other market centers from its NYSE floor booth/outsourced trading desk.  TradeStation Prime Services is located at 400 Madison Avenue, New York, New York.

     TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NYSE, FINRA, NFA and SIPC) is a licensed, self-clearing securities broker-dealer and a registered omnibus-clearing futures commission merchant, and has memberships or similar approved status (as well as direct connectivity for both market data and order execution) with BATS Z-Exchange, Boston Options Exchange,Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange, EDGA Exchange, EDGX Exchange, International Securities Exchange, NASDAQ OMX BX, NASDAQ OMX PHLX, The NASDAQ Stock Market, NYSE Arca and NYSE Amex.  For futures accounts, TradeStation connects directly (for both market data and order execution) with the CME Group, Eurex Group and ICE Group (U.S. and Europe) exchanges. TradeStation is a clearance member with DTCC and OCC for equities and options, serves its futures accounts on an omnibus clearance basis, and also introduces institutional equities accounts to J. P. Morgan Clearing Corp., as clearance agent.  TradeStation Securities has offices in South Florida, New York, Chicago and Dallas, and an affiliated introducing broker (TradeStation Europe Limited) in London.

About TradeStation Group, Inc.

     TradeStation Group, Inc. (NASDAQ GS: TRAD), through its principal operating subsidiary, TradeStation Securities, Inc., offers the TradeStation platform to the active trader and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation is an electronic trading platform that offers state-of-the-art electronic order execution and enables clients to design, test, optimize, monitor and automate their own custom Equities, Options, Futures and Forex trading strategies.  TradeStation Group’s other operating subsidiaries are TradeStation Technologies, Inc. and TradeStation Europe Limited.

Nature of this Announcement 

This announcement is made on a limited basis through hedge fund and other institutional trader
websites and similar media for promotional/marketing purposes, to educate potential customers
of TradeStation Prime Services about its product and service offerings, and is not intended to be
an investor relations or public disclosure document for TradeStation’s publicly-traded holding
company (TradeStation Group, Inc.).


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Listed Hedge Funds

Listed Hedge Funds

Listed Hedge Funds Continue to Struggle

Listed hedge funds have struggled in the last two years and the listed funds of hedge funds is in an even more dismal state, as a recent article in eFinancial News explains. Despite the listed hedge fund sector expanding from 14 to 60 from 2004 to 2008, funds are still trading at an average discount to net assets of 18 percent.
The other eight – from the RAB Capital Special Situations fund that floated on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market in May 2005 to the Brevan Howard BH Global fund that floated on the London Stock Exchange almost exactly three years later – all trade at a discount.
One of them, the MW Tops fund run by UK hedge fund manager Marshall Wace, was put into voluntary liquidation by its investors at the end of last month.

The listed fund of hedge funds sector has fared even worse. Having expanded from 14 funds to 60 between 2004 and 2008, with assets growing almost tenfold, the sector is now trading at an average discount to net assets of 18%, according to stockbrokers at Royal Bank of Scotland. The sector, in the jargon, is deeply underwater.

Investors, largely private clients, were attracted to listed hedge funds and funds of hedge funds in the mid-2000s through a combination of familiarity with investment trusts and desire to gain exposure to hedge funds. Source

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Hedge Funds Ireland Debt

Hedge Funds Ireland Debt

Irish Paper Accuses Hedge Funds of Betting Against It

Hedge funds have faced a lot of criticism for its supposed role in the collapse of Greece. Now, as Ireland's economy struggles, accusations have emerged in at least one Irish newspaper that hedge funds have been shorting Ireland's debt.
You know a country is really feeling the hit, when its media starts printing the name of investors who are believed to bet betting against it.

The Irish Independent declares that hedge funds are shorting the country's debt:
US hedge funds Groveland Capital and Corrientes Advisors are thought to have taken major positions against Irish debt. Giant €60bn asset-manager Pictet also revealed that it had earlier bet against Irish government bonds. JP Morgan is also thought to have taken a bearish position on Irish debt.
No word on who "thought" these funds were making these bets, or whether their impact is at all real.
Elsewhere, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is talking about a "remarkable turnaround" in the economy. Surely.  Source

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Hedge Funds Diesel Price

Hedge Funds Diesel Price

Hedge Funds Continue to Raise Bets on Rising Diesel Price

Hedge funds have raised bets to the highest point in six weeks that the price of diesel will increase. The trades are likely stoked by the doubling of US diesel exports to Europe.
Hedge funds and other large speculators increased bullish wagers on heating oil, a proxy for diesel, by 58 percent the week ended Sept. 21, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in its weekly Commitments of Traders report.

“We’re seeing strong industrial production data in Western Europe,” said Hamza Khan, an analyst at the Schork Group in Villanova, Pennsylvania. “That’s a good indicator for intermodal transportation demand like trains and diesel trucks, especially in Europe given how much more dependent they are on diesel than we are in America.”

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, bolstered diesel consumption in the region as the country avoided the sovereign debt crisis that plagued nations in the euro area, including Greece and Ireland. European demand for diesel and heating oil strengthened in September as refineries halted for maintenance and German consumers stocked up before winter. Source

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David Tepper Equities

David Tepper Equities

Video Interview: David Tepper Ups Equities Allocation

As I noted in last week's article on the interview of David Tepper, Appaloosa Management has become one of the most impressive hedge funds in the industry. Tepper's fund made $7 billion in 2009 largely by buying shares on the bet that struggling banks would recover. Now, Tepper appears to be favoring equities. Here is the first part of his two part interview with CNBC.  If you are reading this via RSS or e-mail, click here to watch this video:



Here is the second part of the David Tepper interview:




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Top Five Hedge Funds

Top Five Hedge Funds

Institutional Investor Ranks the Top Five Hedge Funds

Institutional Investor ranks the top 100 hedge funds in terms of total capital. In the following video, Institutional Investor's executive editor, Michael Peltz, reveals the magazine's ranking of the top five hedge funds.  If you are reading this via RSS or e-mail, click here to watch the video.

Top Five Hedge Funds:

BridgeWater Associates - $38.6 billion
JPMorgan Chase - $32.89 billion
Paulson & Co. - $29 billion
D.E. Shaw & Co. - $28.6 billion
Brevan Howard Asset Management - $26.8 billion







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David Tepper Interview

David Tepper Interview

How David Tepper Made Billions in the Financial Crisis

David Tepper, the billionaire manager of Appaloosa Management, spoke in some detail about his strategy in 2008 and 2009 that made him billions of dollars. During the height of the financial crisis when most hedge funds were just trying to protect against losses, Tepper's fund was buying up shares in failing banks, expecting a rebound that would pay off big. And that is exactly what happened in 2009, when the banks shares that he had bought for cheap started rising Appaloosa Management made $7.5 billion. Here is an interesting interview with David Tepper:

When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, investors panicked on Wall Street, causing dangerous aftershocks across the markets. And while most of Appaloosa’s peers were desperately trying to mitigate losses and stave off redemption requests amidst the market’s free fall, Tepper decided it was the perfect time to leap right into the eye of the storm.

So the fund started aggressively buying up depressed bank debt of holding companies like Washington Mutual and common and preferred stock of Wachovia and others.

One has to wonder if the guy eats nails for breakfast.

“We lead he herd,” he chuckles. “The Street follows us, we don’t follow the Street.”

Tepper was sitting on a pile of cash, having sold out of most of his positions in the spring of 2008, and didn’t have any debt. So when the U.S. Treasury put out a white paper in February 2009 announcing its Financial Stability Plan, which included the Capital Assistance Program designed to shore up the capital of banks, he took his time and read the fine print. read more..

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Asia Hedge Fund Growth

Asia Hedge Fund Growth

Asia-Focused Hedge Funds Add 3.9% Assets in First Half

Asia-focused hedge funds growth is slowing in terms of assets. Asia-focused hedge fund assets increased by only 3.9% in the first half of 2010. Hedge funds in the region now manage US$137.8 billion.
Asia may well be the home of the future of the hedge fund industry, but it’s a future that’s slow in coming.

Asia-focused hedge fund assets increased by just 3.9% in the first half. All told, hedge funds in the region now manage US$137.8 billion, up US$5.3 billion from the end of last year, AsiaHedge reports.

Growth in the region was stalled both by weak inflows and less-than-stellar performance, AsiaHedge said. Still, Asia hedge fund assets grew faster than global hedge fund assets, which increased by about 3% in the first half.

“The nascent recovery seen in Asian hedge fund assets toward the end of last year has been stalled due to weak capital inflows, continued redemptions and largely flat performance of the funds in the first half of 2010,” Aradhna Dayal, AsiaHedge editor, said. She added that she expects another “major round of consolidation” for Asian hedge funds. Source

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Forbes' Rich List

Forbes' Rich List

Hedge Fund Managers Included on Forbes' 400 Rich List

Forbes' 400 list of wealthiest Americans includes many representatives of the alternative investment industry. Among the 400 individuals were at least 61 hedge fund and private equity managers. George Soros of Soros Fund Management leads the alternative investment community with $14.2 billion.
At least 61 alternative investments titans crowd this year’s Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans. And the most well-off among them—the 18 that made Forbes’ top 100—for the most part got richer over the last year.

George Soros remains the richest hedge fund manager in the land with $14.2 billion, making him more than $1 billion richer than last year. Soros ranked 14th among America’s wealthiest. John Paulson came in second among alternatives billionaires with $12.4 billion, nearly doubling his total from last year to leapfrog Carl Icahn, Ron Perelman ($11 billion each) and James Simons ($8.7 billion) on the list.

SAC Capital Advisors’ Steven Cohen came in 32nd on the list with $7.3 billion, followed by Ray Dalio ($5 billion), Sam Zell ($4.4 billion), David Tepper ($4.3 billion), and Bruce Kovner and Stephen Schwarzman ($4.1 billion each). Source

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Hedge Fund Marketing Power Words

Hedge Fund Marketing

Powers Words to Raise Capital With

I was recently at a Eben Pagan training session on marketing and during a session at that event we focused in on power words to use in copywriting.

Copywriting Definition: The use of powerful and persuasive writing in marketing to get your prospect to action. 

During this session Eben shows us the results of a college study which showed that the following words are some of the most powerful in the entire human language:
  • You
  • Money
  • Results
  • Save
  • New
  • Easy
  • Love
  • Discovery
  • Health
  • Proven
  • Guarantee
  • Free
How many of these words are relevant for hedge fund marketing activities? Many.  The truth is that copywriting is an after-thought at best within our industry so if you can incorporate some of these words within a way that doesn't come off as "Salesy" than you could do very well by having far more engaging marketing materials than your competitors.   Some practical applications of power words in your marketing could include:
  • Team bios
  • Pitch Books
  • Email subject lines (big one)
  • Voicemails
  • One pager headline or description pieces
  • Book & Whitepaper titles
Obviously throwing words randomly into a title or subject line is not going to increase the response is you sound like everyone else in the industry so as usual it is not a cure-all for raising capital but it definitely can help.  

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Christian Baha Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Christian Baha Wall Street

Christian Baha Cameos in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps


Christian Baha, the manager of Superfund, has taken a cameo role in "Money Never Sleeps", the sequel to "Wall Street". How did the hedge fund manager land the role? Director Oliver Stone is an investor in Baha's $1.2 billion Superfund hedge fund group.
Hedge fund managers are well known for extracting huge fees from their wealthy investors. Relatively few have landed a role in a client's Hollywood blockbuster.

However, Christian Baha, head of $1.2 billon hedge fund group Superfund, has been given a cameo in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," the sequel to the 1987 original "Wall Street", thanks to a friendship with director -- and Superfund investor -- Oliver Stone.

Baha, whose computer-driven funds aim to exploit trends in global futures markets, has a short speaking role as, perhaps unsurprisingly, a hedge fund manager, while Michael Douglas resumes the role of ruthless financier Gordon Gekko in a film some have seen as a thinly-veiled attack on Goldman Sachs (GS.N).

Baha, a serial entrepreneur who quit a job as a policeman in Vienna in the 1990s to focus on his businesses, now divides his time between Monaco, Vienna and Los Angeles, where he met Stone, a spokesman said. Source

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Number of Asia-Focused Hedge Funds

Asia-Focused Hedge Funds

Number of Asia-Focused Hedge Fund Hits New Peak in July

Hedge funds focused in Asia hit a record high in the month of July 2010. The number of Asia-focused hedge funds was 1,278 in July, higher than the previous peak of 1,240 in 2007.
The number of hedge funds investing in Asia hit a record high of 1,278 in July, Singapore-based fund tracker Eurekahedge said on Wednesday, as new funds look to raise their exposure to Asia's fast-growing economies.

This compares with around 1,200 funds in existence at the end of 2009 and exceeds the previous peak of 1,240 in 2007.

Hedge funds have been making a beeline for Asia, attracted by strong economic growth and lighter regulation in Singapore and Hong Kong at a time when Western countries are looking to tighten control of hedge funds following the financial crisis.

"The 125 Asian hedge fund launches in the first seven months of the year represent a return to the healthy growth seen before 2008," Eurekahedge said in a report.

It said the rise was a result of growing interest in Asia as well as the ease in setting up hedge funds in the region compared to several years ago. Source


Related to: Kynikos Associates | James Chanos | Hedge Fund Notes

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TradeStation to Add Securities Lending to Its Prime Services Offering

For Immediate Release

TradeStation to Add Securities Lending to Its Prime Services Offering

Taps Industry Veteran to Head Sec. Lending Department and Co-Head Division 

New York, NY, September 21, 2010 – TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NYSE, FINRA, SIPC and NFA) today announced the hiring of Robert Sackett to start up and lead the securities lending department of, and co-head, its TradeStation Prime Services division.

“Securities lending services are a critical component of our plan to build a first-class prime brokerage offering to small and mid-sized hedge funds and other buy-side traders who can no longer receive important prime brokerage services directly from the large firms,” said Salomon Sredni, CEO of TradeStation Group, the parent company of TradeStation Securities. “We believe TradeStation’s position as a self-clearing broker-dealer serving this market allows it to offer a more compelling value proposition compared to other firms that cannot directly provide custody, clearing, settlement and securities lending and must instead rely on the large firms to which they introduce all of their accounts.”

“We believe Rob’s 15 years of experience and relationships in securities lending will allow TradeStation to compete effectively in a market that continues to see industry fragmentation and where small to mid-sized buy-side institutional traders continue to seek prime brokers capable of directly delivering to them basic, critical prime services,” added Lance Baraker, Senior Managing Director and co-head of TradeStation Prime Services.

Mr. Sackett is leaving his position of Managing Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. to join TradeStation Prime Services as Senior Managing Director and co-head of the division. He has over 15 years of securities lending experience at Citigroup and its predecessors, and has been a NYSE-approved Securities Lending Representative since 1995 and a NYSE-approved Securities Lending Supervisor since 2002. He is scheduled to begin his employment with TradeStation after the Thanksgiving holiday, following the expiration of his 75-day garden leave period with Citigroup. TradeStation Prime Services expects to begin offering securities lending services in the 2011 first quarter.

For additional information about TradeStation Prime Services, please visit:
http://www.tradestationprime.com/.

About TradeStation Prime Services, a division of TradeStation Securities, Inc.

      TradeStation Prime Services, a division of TradeStation Securities, Inc., was founded to
serve the needs of start-up to mid-sized hedge funds, registered investment advisers, professional
traders and asset managers who need quality prime brokerage services, including execution and
clearance, securities lending, capital introduction, and “incubation” services. Clients are offered
electronic trading and decision-support platforms, including TradeStation, to analyze their
trading strategies and automate or manually place their orders, and may avail themselves of the
firm’s NYSE floor membership, which allows it to execute trades on behalf of clients on the
NYSE floor as well as in other market centers from its NYSE floor booth/outsourced trading
desk. TradeStation Prime Services is located at 400 Madison Avenue, New York, New York.

     TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NYSE, FINRA, SIPC & NFA) is a licensed, self-clearing securities broker-dealer and a registered omnibus-clearing futures commission merchant, and has memberships or similar approved status (as well as direct connectivity for both market data and order execution) with BATS Z-Exchange, Boston Options Exchange, Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange, EDGA Exchange, EDGX Exchange, International Securities Exchange, NASDAQ OMX BX, NASDAQ OMX PHLX, The NASDAQ Stock Market, NYSE Arca and NYSE Amex. For futures accounts, TradeStation connects directly (for both market data and order execution) with the CME Group, Eurex Group and ICE Group (U.S. and Europe) exchanges. TradeStation is a clearance member with DTCC and OCC for equities and options, serves its futures accounts on an omnibus clearance basis, and also introduces institutional equities accounts to J. P. Morgan Clearing Corp., as clearance agent. TradeStation Securities has offices in South Florida, New York, Chicago and Dallas, and an affiliated introducing broker (TradeStation Europe Limited) in London.

About TradeStation Group, Inc.

       TradeStation Group, Inc. (NASDAQ GS: TRAD), through its principal operating subsidiary, TradeStation Securities, Inc., offers the TradeStation platform to the active trader and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation is an electronic trading platform that offers state-of-the-art electronic order execution and enables clients to design, test, optimize, monitor and automate their own custom Equities, Options, Futures and Forex trading strategies. TradeStation Group’s other operating subsidiaries are TradeStation Technologies, Inc. and TradeStation Europe Limited.

Forward-Looking Statements – Issues, Uncertainties and Risk Factors 


      This press release contains statements that are forward-looking and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, the word “believe,” “expects,” “plan” and similar expressions, if and to the extent used, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based largely on current expectations and beliefs concerning future events that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results herein suggested. Factors that may cause or contribute to the various potential differences include, but are not limited to, the company’s new “TradeStation Prime Services” division, generally, including the planned new securities lending department, turning out to be less profitable, less successful, and/or more costly than expected, or resulting in unanticipated claims or liabilities against the company, as a result of (1) Mr. Sackett’s employment, and/or the securities lending department he is expected to head, not beginning or working out as planned and expected, (2) unanticipated start-up or development costs and expenses that are not offset or exceeded by expected revenues as and when planned (or at all), (3) the TradeStation prime services offering generally, and securities lending services particularly, not growing in appeal to prime services clients to the extent the company believes they will, (4) the failure of the company to make timely and quality enhancements to its trading platform, or to offer alternative platforms, which are believed necessary to attract prime services clients to use TradeStation to execute and clear trades, (5) TradeStation’s size and balance sheet being unacceptably small to mid-size and larger prime services clients (which are part of the market segment the company intends to serve) and third-party providers of credit, funding and inventory required for a successful securities lending department, and (6) the general unpredictability of operating results for a start-up business division, particularly given TradeStation’s lack of experience in offering prime brokerage services generally and securities lending in particular.

Contact –

William P. Cahill
President & Chief Operating Officer
TradeStation Securities, Inc.
954-652-7852


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Hedge Fund Industry Consolidation

Hedge Fund Industry Consolidation

Report: 1 in 5 Hedge Funds Could be Liquidated by Next Year

Merrill Lynch has issued a gloomy report about the hedge fund industry, predicting that as much as 20% of hedge funds could be liquidated by next year. The reason for the consolidation, according to the report, is that investors increasingly prefer larger hedge funds making it very difficult for hedge fund start-ups to raise capital.
Consolidation isn’t the only force likely to shrink the hedge fund industry, according to a new report.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicts that as many as one in five hedge funds could be liquidated by next year. The culprit? A brutal fundraising environment in which investors increasingly prefer larger hedge fund managers.

“Going into the year-end, there will be significant closures and we estimate it could be as high as 20%,” the firm’s Justin Fredericks told Bloomberg News. “A large portion of managers are still below high-water marks. Performance is flat and money hasn’t been flowing to smaller managers.”

Hedge fund managers running less than $100 million are the most likely to be affected by the hedgicide, Fredericks, Merrill’s head of U.S. capital introductions said. Source

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Hedge Funds Hiring Process

Hedge Funds Hiring Process

Hedge Funds Increase Difficulty & Hurdles in Hiring Process

Hedge funds and private equity firms have had their pick of the business school litter for years and now the hiring process is becoming more difficult. Every year, hedge funds and buyout shops have become more meticulous in their hiring, with more far trickier interview questions and even psychological evaluations.
"It's more and more each year," said J. Patrick Gorman, cofounder of iFind Group, a New York-based recruiting firm. "We've had clients ask for SAT scores from people who have been in the industry for 20 years."

Private-equity firms and hedge funds, which are typically smaller than banks and brokerages, have grown particularly -- some would say excruciatingly -- deliberate.

Todd Monti, managing partner of the private equity and venture capital practice at the Heidrick & Struggles search firm, said that until recently very few firms brought in third-party psychologists or hiring consultants. Today, between 10% and 15% of the candidates that he places are screened by such professionals, typically at the later stages. The wide-ranging and personal Q&As can take up to six hours.

"I view that as part of an evolution of our business," Monti said. "More and more firms really try to understand at a granular level how a candidate would fit in the institution." Read the whole article

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Ron Beller Hedge Fund

Ron Beller Hedge Fund

Ron Beller of Collapsed Peloton to Launch New Hedge Fund

In the hedge fund industry, managers sometimes get second chances. Ron Beller founded Peloton Partners but the hedge fund went bust over a big subprime securities bet. Beller is now teaming up with a former Peloton trader, Manal Mehta, to launch a new hedge fund with $40 million of their own capital. The new fund, Branch Hill Capital, is looking to raise $250 million from outside investors over the next year.
Ron Beller, the hedge fund manager whose firm, Peloton Partners, collapsed after a huge bet on subprime securities went catastrophically sour, has launched a new shingle with former Peloton colleague Manal Mehta, Financial News reported.

The two have seeded the new hedge fund, Branch Hill Capital, with $40 million of their own capital, and are looking to raise $250 million from outside investors over the next year, the publication said. The fund, which began trading in June, is up 15 percent in its first three months, according to Financial News.

One of London’s most successful hedge funds, Peloton imploded in February 2008, putting the assets of its $2 billion flagship fund up for sale and freezing its remaining fund after mortgage trades left it unable to meet lenders’ demands.
Mr. Beller, now based in San Francisco, led Goldman Sachs’s fixed-income currency and commodity sales group in London before leaving in 2001 to help reorganize the New York City school system. He co-founded Peloton with Geoff Grant, a former co-head of Goldman’s macro proprietary trading group. Source

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Barnegat Hedge Fund Bonds Trade

Barnegat Hedge Fund Bonds

Barnegat Fund Made One of the Most Successful Trades

For many traders, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing crisis led to huge losses. Others, namely New Jersey-based Barnegat Fund Management, saw this moment as a way to make what the Financial Times notes as "one of the most successful hedge fund trades in recent memory." 

The paper details how prices for US Treasury inflation-linked securities – government bonds that provide protection against rising prices – and regular Treasury bonds were thrown out of sync by as much as 23 cents on the dollar following the collapse of Lehman Brothers two years ago this week.

“The arbitrages reported are stunning in magnitude,” the researchers said. “What makes these findings even more dramatic is that the Tips [Treasury inflation-protected securities] and Treasury markets are two of the most liquid and largest financial markets in the world ... The sheer magnitude of this mispricing presents a serious challenge to conventional asset pricing theory.”

The NBER said the arbitrage had narrowed during 2009 to more normal levels. However, for a small group of savvy traders the pricing discrepancies at their widest led to one of the most successful hedge fund trades in recent memory.

One of the biggest beneficiaries was the low-profile New Jersey-based $450m Barnegat fund, founded in 1999.

Read more

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