Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
Globe and Mail – Harry Dent, a U.S. economist and author known in some circles as the “sage of doom and gloom,” is backing this week’s launch of Dent Tactical ETF – a rare breed among exchange-traded funds.
Dent Tactical is an actively managed ETF in that it doesn’t track an index. It invests in sector, industry or country ETFs where Mr. Dent sees opportunities based on demographic and other trends.
While this fund is among a handful of non-index ETFs in North America, it’s part of a growing niche that is expected to rival traditional mutual funds, observers say.
Bloomberg – Dennis Gartman, an economist and the editor of the Gartman Letter, said he is creating his first hedge fund to speculate on assets including global equities and commodities.
The River Crescent Fund, created Aug. 17, seeks to raise $200 million over the first year, Gartman said today in an interview from Suffolk, Virginia. The fund already includes some “well-known hedge-fund managers,” he said, without identifying them. Gartman has managed guaranteed notes since 2007 and an exchange-traded fund since April in Canada.
The Business Insider – Nassim Taleb and his hedge-fund partner Mark Spitznagel weigh in in the FT with an analysis of the world’s problem (too much debt) and a reasonable solution (convert some of the debt to equity).
As usual, Taleb lards up his argument with guru-speak and smug swipes at every other economist on the planet, which undermine the point. But in this case, the point is a good one.
Converting debt to equity is what corporations do when they go bankrupt. GM and Chrysler just did it, and the airlines will do it next time they go bust. Same for the hundreds of other companies that go broke every year.
AP – CNBC’s Jim Cramer has another feud on his hands.
Just weeks after "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart took Cramer to task for trying to turn finance reporting into a "game," famous bear economist Nouriel Roubini criticized Cramer on Tuesday for predicting bull markets.
"Cramer is a buffoon," said Roubini, a New York University economics professor often called Dr. Doom. "He was one of those who called six times in a row for this bear market rally to be a bull market rally and he got it wrong. And after all this mess and Jon Stewart he should just shut up because he has no shame."
