It's Better To Be John Paulson Than To Work For Him

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Great news Paul Krugman! A lack of trees and fake-doc mortgages add up to a down (31%) YTD performance for John Paulson's levered Advantage Plus and (21.5%) YTD for the regular Advantage. But gold bugs will also have something to cheer:

There appears to be a sliver or two of good news for Paulson. His gold fund is up about 6% for the year, according to an investor’s calculations. The bulk of Paulson’s own money is in gold, and in gold-denominated share classes offered by his firm, so he’s making out much better than many of his investors.

Not clear how the gold-denominated classes have performed but with gold up 25% YTD Paulson is probably not doing much worse than the S&P with his own money, which is something.

On the other hand if you work for Paulson and are thinking about maybe withdrawing money to put kids through college, buy a nice house, or get out of the way of a falling knife, maybe you should grow a pair and get back to work:

One big reason the funds didn’t see many redemptions: Over 36% of the cash in the funds is from the firm’s employees, according to someone close to the matter.

John Paulson Hits A Soft Patch [WSJ]
Matthew Goldstein: The Perils Of Paulson [Reuters]

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