HedgeFundsX

‘Star’ Traders Who Leave Banks To Strike Out On Their Own Are Realizing That They Stink [BusinessInsider] Some of the biggest traders to have swapped working at a bank for running their own hedge funds are finding it much tougher on their own, with returns since they launched lagging rivals and disappointing investors. Dozens of top traders have fled banks in recent years, spurred into launching their own funds instead as U.S. regulators seek to ban banks from trading with their own money on so-called “proprietary” desks.

10 Hedge Funds Getting Whacked On Research In Motion [BusinessInsider] Research In Motion revealed some bad news after the closing bell Tuesday that it had hired bankers to explore options and that it sees an operating loss in Q1. Following that announcement, shares of the Blackberry-maker were down more than 10% in pre-market trading on Wednesday.
Here’s a rundown of ten hedge funds with the greatest stake RIMM, according to data from the latest 13F regulatory filings (3/31/2012) compiled by Bloomberg. One thing to note is hedge funds only have to report their long holdings in 13F regulatory filings.

A Hedge Funder Made A 7,100% Return By Playing Blackjack At A Hedge Fund Conference In Las Vegas [BusinessInsider] Michael Geismer, the founder of Quantitative Investment Management, arrived at the SALT hedge fund conference at the Bellagio in Las Vegas two weeks ago with $10,000. After staying for three days, he left with $710,000 in his pocket on a private jet back to his home in Virginia. How? He won big at the blackjack tables. Lawrence Delevingne at AR has a lengthy chronicle of Geismer’s lucky gambling streak at SALT, which he was attending for the second year in a row. Geismer liked the contacts he was able to make at SALT, but also enjoyed the fact that he was able to gamble—and he was particularly fond of blackjack.

SkyBridge Liquidates Two Funds [HedgeFundNet] Funds of hedge funds firm SkyBridge Capital is closing two of its hedge fund seeding funds due to mediocre performance. The Wall Street Journal reported that the two funds – with a collective total of $260 million in assets under management – will return all capital to investors by April 2013. The article also said that one of the funds reported a 5.3% loss, while the performance of the other fund was not disclosed.

The Bar Has Been Set For Lengths Gone To In Order To Secure Seed Capital [DealBreaker] Want to get in shape? Want to save money? Want to hole up and pound out a business plan for the [hedge fund/private equity firm/boutique investment bank/whathaveyou] you want to get off the ground? Want to impress industry execs and potential investors with your problem solving skills and can-do attitude? What if we told you there was a foolproof way to accomplish all those goals and more, that it wouldn’t cost you a thing, that you might even have some fun doing it, and that there’d be free cereal and Coke involved? Would that sound like something you’d be interested in? Then, congratulations, you’re already halfway there. Step 1 was getting on board, Step 2 is finding an investment bank or asset management firm that’s lax on night security and moving in.