Seeking Alpha – I’m lucky to count among my friends Charlie Michaels, owner of hedge fund company Sierra Global and portfolio manager of the Sierra Europe Fund. Charlie is among the few hedge fund managers sitting on a gain so far this year.

According to the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index managed by Hedge Fund Research, Inc. in Chicago, the average hedge fund dropped 5.4% last month and is down 15.5% so far this year. The industry has been losing for five months in a row, which is the longest down streak since the index began in 1990.

Charlie and his team at Sierra Global, meanwhile, gained 0.2% in September, 3.0% last month, and are up 8.6% so far this year. The only year the Sierra Europe Fund ended down was 2002, when it lost 12.3%. The FTSE 100 lost 25% that year and the DAX 42%, so even Sierra’s loss that year can be chalked up as a relative victory. All of which is to say that it’s worth paying attention to Charlie when it comes to stocks.

Read Complete Article

Tags: 1-million, arch-nemesis, bets, cac, housing-market, industry-group, instant-messages, money, msci, pact, real-estate-investment-trusts, security-prices

ABC News – European stock markets opened higher Tuesday after Japan’s Nikkei index recovered from 26-year lows, with Germany’s DAX further boosted by another steep rise in the value of Volkswagen AG shares.

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 92.62 points, or 2.4 percent, higher at 3,945.21, helped along by a near 6 percent rise in BP PLC’s share price after the oil giant revealed an 83 percent increase in net profit in the three months from July to September to $8.05 billion.

Read Complete Article

Tags: avenue-capital, cac, capital-group, currency-reserves, french-oil, india, leading-authority, makoto, pam-beach, solvency, spokeswoman, stake