Hedge Funds Double Down On Tech Stocks (II)
The top three stocks on the VIP list – Gacebook, Amazon, and Alphabet – are each held as a top-ten portfolio position in more than 60 hedge funds. Facebook is the most widely owned stock among hedge funds, with 79 funds holding the company as a top-ten position, even as the social media network reckoned with several crises last year.
Noble Has One Option Left (WSJ)
The underlying truth is that Noble now seems to exist merely to raise money from one set of lenders to pay off another. The company bled some $300 million of cash flows from operations in the first quarter. Having spent the past year or so selling most of its assets, Noble has few other options to raise new capital. And, it now faces diminished cash-generation prospects. Yet it faces three large debt maturities over the next year, including $656 million due in June this year and another $1.5 billion next year.
Citigroup Settles With Justice Department Over Money Laundering (WSJ)
From 2007 to 2012, Banamex USA processed over 30 million remittance transactions to Mexico with a total value of more than $8.8 billion, but there was virtually no investigation for suspicious activity. Over that time period, the banking unit filed just nine suspicious activity reports, even though its own monitoring reports identified over 18,000 alerts on more than $142 million in potentially suspicious transactions, the statement said.
Wall Street Stuck in Legal Stalemate Over Research Payments (BBG)
From next year, EU investment managers must either pay for analysis out of their own profit-and-loss accounts or through research payment accounts, or RPAs, which are linked to dealing commissions. Yet both unbundling options appear to conflict with U.S. law to varying degrees, according to legal sources contacted by Bloomberg News. For their part, U.S. lenders are concerned that the Securities and Exchange Commission won’t provide an exemption allowing them to accept hard cash for research in Europe.
Only Robots Can Tally What The Largest U.S. Pension Fund Pays In Fees (WSJ)
Calpers was long unable to separate one set of fees from the other, relying in part on a set of spreadsheets to keep track of the data. The information was also stored in a range of different formats, making it difficult to aggregate and analyze. It took five years to develop a new data-collection system that relies on private-equity managers to fill out new templates describing their various fees.
SoftBank's $100 Billion Tech Fund Rankles VCs as Valuations Soar (BBG)
Already founders approached by SoftBank are caught between the desire to take the money and concern about handing over too much control of their company, according to an investor. One startup targeted by SoftBank has tried to negotiate for less money, this person says. SoftBank won't budge; it's a big check or nothing. SoFi originally asked for less money, too, according to another investor. Pushing startups to take more cash than they ask for has been Son's strategy since the beginning. SoftBank invested more money in Yahoo, Alibaba and Didi than what the entrepreneurs had initially wanted.
Marc Andreessen Answers the Tech Valuation Question (BBG)
Venture-capital funds typically have a 50 percent failure rate -- half of the investments lose money, with half of those being total losses. The third quartile breaks even, or returns two or three times their money over five to 10 years. The real action is in their top quartile, which can generate return on investments of anywhere from three- to 1,000-fold. Andreessen observes “We make our money on the ones that work and our reputations on the ones that don’t.”
We got a look inside a vast Icelandic bitcoin mine (BI)
Genesis' electricity consumption is very significant. CEO Marco Streng says energy companies "offer us helicopter rides whenever we arrive" and speculates that the company may be one of the biggest single users of power in the country.
Taking the Drama Out of Your Trading (TraderFeed)
A trade is like a first date. It might work; it might not. You look for certain patterns and you see what happens subsequently. When it doesn't go so well, you don't let the first date spill into a second and third. You exit when you're least invested. If it goes well, you invest a little more and stick with it. It's all about probabilities and learning that first dates that don't become second dates are not failures. They are simply experiences that are necessary to find those opportunities of a lifetime.
Google’s AlphaGo Defeats Chinese Go Master in Win for A.I. (NYT)
Mr. Ke, who smiled and shook his head as AlphaGo finished out the game, said afterward that his was a “bitter smile.” After he finishes this week’s match, he said, he would focus more on playing against human opponents, noting that the gap between humans and computers was becoming too great. He would treat the software more as a teacher, he said, to get inspiration and new ideas about moves.
Build Your Own Trading Bot (WSJ)
A Famous Big-Game Hunter Died After An Elephant Fell On Him (Buzzfeed)
Theunis Botha, 51, was leading an afternoon hunt at Good Luck Farm, near Hwange National Park, Friday when the group stumbled upon a herd of elephants, according to South African media reports. The encounter spooked the animals, and several elephants charged the hunters. Caught by surprise, Botha opened fire, but one of the elephants got close enough to lift him with her trunk. Another hunter then shot the elephant, causing her to collapse on Botha.
