Opalesque Exclusive: Hedge funds are back, but dispersion makes selection critical, says AQUIS Capital... [more]Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: Hedge funds are back in demand, supported by a more favorable environment for active management: normalised rates, higher stock-bond correlations, wider dispersion, elevate

Opalesque Roundup: Allocators accelerate, managers relocate, and an AI concentrated tape splits the field: hedge fund news... [more]Three currents ran through the week's reporting. Capital is arriving faster than the industry expected at the start of the year. The largest platforms are absorbing most of it. And an AI-led equity tape is quietly punishing the managers built to be indifferent to direction. Alongside those sat a

Next-gen wealthy Hongkongers drop property for higher returns in deposits and hedge funds... [more]Younger wealthy Hongkongers are moving away from the traditional preference for owning property and putting more capital into liquid investments such as deposits and hedge funds. One family cited in the report now rents separate homes for three generations, freeing capital that would otherwise be ti

Smart money cut risk. The machines did not.... [more]Hedge funds have reduced risk, but systematic strategies remain heavily exposed and vulnerable to a volatility-driven selloff.

Dimitriou's Elan joins hedge funds mulling an office in Greece... [more]Renos Dimitriou's Elan Capital Management is exploring opening an office in Athens and has held preliminary discussions with Greek authorities, although no decision has been made. The fixed-income relative-value hedge fund, which had more than USD4bn in assets at the start of last year, joins Millen

JPMorgan cut off Situational Awareness lending after AI losses... [more]JPMorgan Chase stopped lending to Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund Situational Awareness after the fund suffered huge losses during July's AI-stock rout. The fund's assets fell from more than USD45bn to about USD10bn, forcing it to deleverage and sell public equity positions to Citadel, while it i

Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness is active in options market... [more]Situational Awareness has returned to public markets after its dramatic July losses, buying options positions in AMD, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, SK Hynix, SanDisk and the Roundhill Memory ETF. The fund's assets fell to about USD10bn from more than USD45bn after leveraged AI bets collapsed, forcing it

Former Sydney banker Hash Patel's 'no losing months' trading pitch... [more]Former Merrill Lynch banker Ashish "Hash" Patel helped develop the Mars FX trading system, which attracted hundreds of wealthy investors and family trusts with claims of unusually consistent performance. Investor materials reported annual gains averaging about 18%-19% and no losing month over roughl

David Einhorn bets on bottled water, another hedge fund manager says 'solid financial picture' for stock... [more]Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn has taken a position in Primo Brands, the bottled-water company formed through the merger of Primo Water and BlueTriton Brands. The investment reflects Einhorn's continued focus on value opportunities where operational improvements and a stronger financial profile

Michael Burry says the best defense against dollar doom and AI disasters might be a fine Bordeaux... [more]Michael Burry is investing in fine wine as a hedge against dollar debasement, technological disruption and financial instability, calling the asset a "terrific diversifier." The "Big Short" investor points to wine's negative correlation with the dollar, limited supply and demand from wealthy collect

Bitcoin may become a liquidity magnet as stock shorts hit records... [more]Hedge fund gross leverage has climbed to roughly 293% while short exposure to the S&P 500 has reached record levels, although analysts say much of the positioning represents hedging rather than outright bearishness. XWIN Japan argues that Bitcoin could increasingly become a separate liquidity destin

Scott Bessent's attempts to suppress interest rates could spark a recession... [more]Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been using Treasury bond buybacks in an effort to contain borrowing costs, including plans for USD6bn of repurchases, but longer-term yields have instead climbed, with the 10-year Treasury reaching 4.97%. The article argues that inflation concerns, tariffs, the I

'If the Bloomberg Terminal bros are unhappy with what I'm doing, that's too bad': Bessent... [more]Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has rejected criticism from bond investors over interventions including additional Treasury buybacks and efforts to support the yen, saying he will keep "ignoring the noise." The buybacks temporarily lowered yields, but 10- and 30-year Treasury yields subsequently ro

Hedge funds increasingly speculate on French debt, raising specter of crisis... [more]Hedge funds now account for more than half of weekly purchase requests for French government debt, according to the Banque de France, as their importance in the market grows alongside France's debt burden. While leveraged funds provide liquidity and can help contain borrowing costs, regulators worry

God told them to sell crypto. Their investors lost everything.... [more]More than 500 people invested over USD3m in INDXcoin, a cryptocurrency created by Colorado pastor Eli Regalado and his wife Kaitlyn and marketed heavily through evangelical Christian networks. The project collapsed after the exchange built to trade the coin ran out of liquidity, leaving investors wi

Oraclum hedge fund founder is charged with lying about returns... [more]Federal prosecutors have charged Oraclum Capital founder Vuk Vukovic with securities and wire fraud, alleging that he misrepresented the performance of the firm's Orca Bason Fund. Prosecutors say Vukovic sent investors false monthly statements showing returns higher than the fund actually earned and

Elon Musk told ex-girlfriend he needed 'a legion of children before the civil war'... [more]Ashley St Clair, a former partner of Elon Musk and mother of one of his children, said Musk told her he wanted "a legion of children before the civil war" and accused him of using X to foster dangerous social division. Speaking at the Venice premiere of Alex Gibney's documentary Musk, St Clair also

Former Swiss bank partner Mirabaud admits USD100m bribe to Kuwaiti official... [more]Former Swiss Bankers Association head Pierre Mirabaud has received a two-year suspended sentence from Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court after admitting to corruption of a foreign public official and aggravated money laundering. The case concerns a USD100m bribe to a Kuwaiti official and is part o

'Equity analysts are dead': Bridgewater CIO says AI already does it better... [more]Bridgewater Associates co-CIO Greg Jensen says AI systems are already outperforming traditional human equity analysts in important parts of investment research and are increasingly being integrated into the hedge fund's decision-making. Jensen argues that the technology is advancing rapidly enough t

Anthropic CEO calls for A.I. slowdown... [more]Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has called for a global slowdown in AI development to give safety measures time to catch up with rapidly advancing capabilities. In a 3,800-word essay, Amodei said recent developments had convinced him that greater prudence was necessary and proposed stronger i

Bridgewater co-CIO Greg Jensen latest to say AI could wipe out humanity... [more]Bridgewater Associates co-CIO Greg Jensen says AI is getting closer to making better investment decisions than humans and agrees with researchers who warn that sufficiently advanced systems could ultimately pose an existential risk to humanity. His comments are particularly notable because Bridgewat

'I'm really terrified': A mathematician grapples with AI's recent breakthroughs... [more]Cornell mathematician Steven Strogatz says recent AI breakthroughs in mathematics are both scientifically thrilling and personally frightening, warning that researchers may soon be unable to compete without AI. OpenAI recently said tens of thousands of agents had solved a 90-year-old mathematical pr

Activist hedge fund's UK arm pays staff GBP1m each on average... [more]Elliott Advisors' British arm paid its 138 employees an average of nearly GBP1m each in 2025, up from GBP786,775 the previous year, while its highest-paid director received GBP5.1m. The UK operation paid GBP135.4m in wages as revenue rose almost 25% to GBP204.5m and pre-tax profit increased to GBP10

And, finally: Bad idea... [more]From Newsoftheweird: A driver for Recology, a commercial waste collection company, picked up and emptied a dumpster, and then ran the trash compactor before hearing yelling from inside the truck and calling 911. When firefighters arrived, they couldn't just reach in and pull the man out -- he might