Hedge funds can, and often do take both sides on a stock. While most funds are mostly long, during times of weakness, we look for ways to protect or enhance our returns by shorting, buying derivatives, and asset swapping weaker stocks with stronger ones. ARBA was a case in point, we recognize that the nets were rather overbought back in the first quarter, but we were highly long in nets. So we took short positions, sold calls, and even loan our long positions to banks. Throughout the past 6 months, I did not sell any of our IPO positions in ARBA, AGIL, ICGE, BRCD, BRCM, and CHINA. Due to the yield enhancement strategies we made, we made over 300bp during the NASDAQ peak to bottom period while still keeping with our longs. Yes, a lot of our nets will likely never come back, but that's what make our daily work interesting. Finding ways to enhance returns any way possible! While you might say that we could have made much more selling and then buying financials and energy stocks, we can! But by selling very large tech positions, we are doing our clients a dis-service and making our returns less tax efficient.
As for Bloombergs, at almost $2100 per month for the individual investor, might be too steep. Unless you're already one of the lucky folks that Barron's was talking about this weekend (people with $5MM or more)....
You might also want to consider getting CQGs, Reuters, or Bridge. |
