News Around the Hedge Fund World (October 15-19)

Top Fund News--Delivered via Abnormal Returns

The hedge fund industry has never been bigger. Reuters

A hedge fund manager’s life ain’t all it is cracked up to be. FT

A look at the empirical characteristics of mega hedge funds. SSRN

Even veteran hedge funds like Caxton Associates are cutting their fees. WSJ

Eric Falkenstein,on low volatility investing. Falkenblog

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Tracking the Great Investors

Bruce Berkowitz (Fairholme) sat down for an interview to discuss why he’s bucking the herd and going long on financials like AIG, how he views portfolio construction, and why it’s critical to make big bets on companies trading well below break-up value. Per usual, Bruce does not disappoint in this video interview.
Click Here to Watch the Interview.

Noted value investor David Dreman (Dreman Value Management) made himself available for a radio interview/podcast this week during which he elaborated on his investment process, offered a few picks, and examined some of the challenges facing individual investors in this market . Warning: The first 5:30 minutes of the segment are largely gibberish, but the remaining 50 minutes are great.
Click Here to Tune-In.

Jean-Marie Eveillard (First Eagle Funds) spoke recently about the pull-back on gold prices and why these short-term fluctuations have had little effect on his bullish outlook on the precious metal. In his words, “You’ve had the hedge funds over the past few years (in gold) because it had been going up. But what I would argue is that gold is not too popular because if I look at the institutional world, the pension funds, endowments, etc., very few of them are invested in gold bullion, and very few of them are in gold mining stocks.” Gold bugs rejoice: This is a nice, long interview with a highly-respected investor.
Click Here to Listen In.

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Insight of the Week

"Why would you possibly want to buy your 10th best idea, if you can buy more of your best idea?"

Bruce Berkowitz
Fairholme Funds