Bloomberg- Duncan Goodwin’s bets for and against oil producers helped his hedge fund outperform most rivals and its own benchmark.
He drew on his past as the U.K.’s top stock analyst to profit from falling stock prices at Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly listed oil company, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest. He bought BP Plc, Europe’s No. 2 oil company, and Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner.
“We focus on what’s new, interesting and exciting, rather than asking whether a company is good or bad,” said Goodwin, 34, who co-manages Martin Currie Investment Management Ltd.’s Global Resources Fund. “We want to understand what’s changing within the company so we speak to their competitors, suppliers, joint venture partners and customers.”
The $424 million fund, which Goodwin co-manages with Chris Butler, returned 17.8 percent in the year ended Mar 31, more than the 11.7 percent average return among 2,000 hedge funds and just ahead of the 16.1 percent return of about 45 hedge funds investing in energy, according to the most recent figures from Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc.
Still, the fund’s 3.2 percent gain through March lags behind the 4.5 percent gain for energy hedge funds tracked by HFR as his bets on falling stock prices for companies the process copper proved “frustrating”. Goodwin gave no further details on the position in an update to investors.
It is ahead of the average of hedge funds that can profit from falling or rising stocks, according to HFR, a Chicago-based researcher.
