Wall Street Journal

2008年10月14日

Some hedge-fund titans have yanked most of their money out of the stock market, a bearish sign amid Monday’s euphoria and an indication of how the hedge-fund business is changing amid chaos.

In recent days, Steven Cohen, the hedge-fund manager who runs the $14 billion SAC Capital Advisors, moved about half his funds, or about $7 billion, into money-market and other short-term securities, eliminating much of his fund’s exposure to the stock market, says a person close to the fund. Mr. Cohen plans on sitting on the sidelines for the rest of the year — trading a small portfolio himself but keeping shuttered most of the stock portfolios of his other managers.

Israel Englander, who runs the $14 billion Millennium Partners fund, has shifted about $6 billion from the stock market into cash, a person close to the fund says.

Meanwhile, John Paulson, manager of $35 billion Paulson & Co. — who made a spectacularly successful bet against the housing market last year — has much of his fund in cash equivalents.

The retrenchment by Wall Street’s ’smart money’ crowd is part of a larger effort by hedge funds that have put a total of as much as $400 billion into cash equivalents recently, according to David Kostin, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Of course, much of the smart money has been wrong in the credit crisis. Many hedge funds have lost big money in the past year. That said, Messrs. Paulson, Cohen and Englander have fared better than most: Mr. Paulson’s main fund is up about 20% this year; Mr. Englander’s main fund is down 0.5%; and Mr. Cohen’s main fund is down more than 9% through September. This compares with a 29% loss in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, year to date.

Goldman’s Mr. Kostin says some hedge funds are being forced to sell to meet investor redemptions. For their part, Messrs. Cohen and Englander have moved to cash because of extreme market chaos and investor panic, according to people familiar with their thinking.

‘There is a lot of uncertainty out there and some people may be saying from a timing point of view they are more comfortable on the sidelines,’ Mr. Kostin says, though he declined to comment on the strategies or positions of the three managers.

The moves come amid stricter new regulatory limits on short selling, a strategy of betting against stocks, which is popular with hedge funds. The Securities and Exchange Commission twice this year imposed a partial ban on short selling.

Regulators also have called for more transparency and oversight of hedge funds. The SEC also is working on a rule that would require investors, including hedge funds, to disclose their short positions to the SEC.

An email from from Richard Fuld Jr., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s chief executive to Lehman General Counsel Thomas Russo on April 12, 2008, shows why hedge funds are so worried. In the email, Mr. Fuld, summarizing the points from a dinner with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, said Mr. Paulson wants to ‘kill the bad HFnds + heavily regulate the rest.’

A spokesman for Lehman declined to comment. The email was released by congressional investigators last week examining the reasons behind Lehman’s collapse and bankruptcy filing.

A large part of the selling by some hedge-fund managers has come since the beginning of October, helping to fuel the sharp selloff in stocks this month. Mr. Cohen, for instance, sold near half of his stock holdings last week, closing out the positions of roughly 50 managers who work for him because he felt they ‘weren’t seeing the ball,’ says a person familiar with the situation.

Mr. Cohen’s decision was made at the end of September and comes from an attempt to stem this year’s losses. He now plans to keep that money on the market sidelines for the rest of the year, though he is still trading a small portfolio, along with a few other managers. The managers whose portfolios were shut are feeding Mr. Cohen short-term trading ideas, the person says.

Mr. Cohen has been one of the hedge-fund industry’s most successful short-term stock-market traders, trading in and out of the market, and other traders sometimes look to him for direction. Mr. Cohen could conceivably jump back into the market quickly. Managers in cash Monday missed out on the Dow’s biggest one-day point gain ever.

About 10% of Mr. Englander’s market sales also were placed in the past several weeks. The rest were made in the summer, the person close to the fund says.

Mr. Paulson has been unwinding his positions for the past year; it is unclear how much has been done in recent weeks. Mr. Paulson has been raising a new fund to buy stakes in financial firms, though he has yet to do any buying, anticipating weak markets.

Even as Messrs. Cohen and Englander have been able to suck cash out of their investment portfolio, they are stuck holding some ‘illiquid,’ or difficult to trade, investments. Mr. Cohen, for instance, has 3% of his assets in a private-equity portfolio, which he accumulated over the last several years.

The pullback is a sign of how the hedge-fund industry could change amid the seismic shifts in the financial landscape. The number of hedge funds, which currently stands at around 8,000, is likely to shrink and those that remain will likely shrink in size. That represents a major reversal from recent years, when hedge funds sought to attract as much money from investors as possible, posting big profits though asset management fees they charge as well as the hefty cut in profits they take from their investors.

The move by the three managers steals a page from old-school hedge-fund managers like Michael Steinhardt, Julian Robertson and George Soros, who would quickly pull in their horns when the market moved against them and remain on the sidelines until conditions improved.

‘Steinhardt would routinely go to cash,’ says John Lattanzio, who was Mr. Steinhardt’s head trader at Mr. Steinhardt’s hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners, for 25 years. ‘When he wasn’t sure of what was happening, he’d say, ‘Sell everything. Let’s go to cash.'’

Susan Pulliam

一些对冲基金业巨头周一悄然将大部分资金撤出了股市，这在周一股市的一片疯涨中可谓一个悲观信号，也显示对冲基金业在混乱的市况下已发生了多么大的变化。

据知情人士说，最近几天，掌管着SAC Capital Advisors这只身价140亿美元对冲基金的史蒂文•科恩(Steven Cohen)将其所管理资金的一半，约70亿美元，转入了货币市场基金和其他短期证券，从而消除了自己所辖基金在股市的大部分风险敞口。科恩计划今年剩余时间选择离场观望，只留他自己操盘的一个小型投资组合继续投资股市，而让SAC Capital Advisor基金其他投资经理操盘的股票投资组合大多封门歇业。

以色列•英格兰德(Israel Englander)掌管着Millennium Partner这只规模达140亿美元的基金。据一位知情人士说，他已将约60亿美元的股票投资转成了现金。

与此同时，约翰•鲍尔森(John Paulson)也将旗下基金Paulson & Co.的350亿美元资产大都转成了现金等价物。去年由于赌对了住房市场将陷入萧条，鲍尔森取得了惊人的投资业绩。

高盛集团(Goldman Sachs Group Inc.)分析师大卫•考斯汀(David Kostin)说，对冲基金业近来已经将总额高达4,000亿美元的资金转成了现金等价物，而这几位华尔街精英人物的上述举动便是这股潮流下的一些具体事例。

当然，在当前这场危机中大多数理财行家都看走了眼。许多对冲基金在过去一年中损失巨大。与大多数对冲基金相比，鲍尔森、科恩和英格兰德的投资业绩已经很不错了：鲍尔森（与财长鲍尔森没有关系）旗下的主要基金今年上涨了约20%；英格兰德旗下的主要基金仅下跌了0.5%；而科恩掌管的主要基金今年截至9月底下跌了逾9%。道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数今年到周一为止的跌幅却高达29%。

高盛的考斯汀说，为应对投资者的赎回要求，一些对冲基金被迫选择了卖出。而据知情人士说，科恩和英格兰德之所以选择将投资变现，则是因为市场的极端混乱和投资者的恐慌情绪。

考斯汀说，市场目前存在诸多不确定性，一些人出于投资时机的考虑，现在可能更倾向于离场观望。考斯汀拒绝对上述三位投资经理的市场策略和持仓情况发表评论。

对冲基金退出股市的一个背景是，监管机构最近收紧了卖空方面的限制，而对冲基金经常使用卖空这种投资策略。美国证券交易委员会(SEC)今年曾两度下令部分禁止卖空。

监管机构还呼吁加强对冲基金业的监管，提高这一行业的透明度。SEC正在制定一项法规，要求包括对冲基金在内的投资者向SEC披露其空头头寸。

雷曼兄弟控股公司(Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.)的首席执行长理查德•福尔德(Richard Fuld Jr.)在2008年4月12日致该公司首席法律顾问托马斯•罗索(Thomas Russo)的一份电子邮件揭示了对冲基金为何如此忧心忡忡。福尔德在邮件中总结他与美国财政部长亨利•鲍尔森(Henry Paulson)共进晚餐时的谈话要点说，鲍尔森想消灭那些不良对冲基金，并对剩余对冲基金严加监管。

雷曼兄弟的一位发言人拒绝对此发表评论。这份电子邮件是由国会调查人员上周披露的，他们正在调查雷曼兄弟垮台及申请破产的幕后原因。

某些对冲基金经理的相当一部分股市卖盘都是在10月份进行的，这对本月的股市暴跌起了推波助澜作用。以科恩为例，他上周便卖出了手中近一半的股票，据一位知情人士说，科恩将手下约50名投资经理掌管的股票头寸悉数卖出，因为他认为这些人没有看到市场的全局。

科恩的这一决定是在9月底作出的，其目的是防止今年的亏损进一步扩大。他现在计划今年剩余时间内不再将变现的资金重新投入股市，不过他仍与公司其他几位投资经理继续运营着一只小规模的股票投资组合。上述知情人士说，这些投资经理自己的投资组合已被关闭，他们现在都来为科恩进行短线交易出谋划策。

科恩一直是对冲基金业最成功的股市短线交易员之一，其他交易员有时会通过观察他来确定自己的交易方向。科恩很有可能迅速重返股市。那些手持现金按兵不动的投资经理人周一白白错过了道琼斯指数历史上最大单日上涨点数。

英格兰德约10%的股市抛售也发生在过去几周。据一位知情人士说，其余抛售是在今年夏季进行的。

约翰•鲍尔森过去一年中一直在不断削减自己的股票头寸，他最近几周抛售了多少股票则不清楚。鲍尔森一直在为一只专门购买金融公司股票的新基金募集资金，但由于预计股市将处于疲弱状态，这只基金一直未买进任何股票。

虽然科恩和英格兰德一直从其投资组合中抽取资金，但他们仍坚持持有一些不易流动或难以交易的投资。以科恩为例，他将3%的资金投入了私人资本运营基金组合，这些投资是他过去几年中逐步积累起来的。

对冲基金从股市撤资显示，在金融业出现沧海桑田转变之际对冲基金行业能够作出多么巨大的调整。美国的对冲基金数量还有可能在目前8,000家左右的基础上进一步减少，而那些幸存下来的对冲基金也有可能缩减规模。这是对冲基金业近年来发展态势的一大逆转，此前这些基金一直在尽可能多地从投资者那里吸引资金，并且通过向投资者收取资产管理费以及从投资者回报中获取丰厚分红而赚得巨额利润。

这三位投资经理的近期举措像是从迈克尔•斯坦哈特(Michael Steinhardt)、朱利安•罗伯森(Julian Robertson)和乔治•索罗斯(George Soros)等老派对冲基金经理那里“偷学”来的，后几位当自己判断市场走势失算时就会迅速将资金撤出，然后离场观望直到市场环境改善。

在斯坦哈特旗下对冲基金Steinhardt Partners担任了25年首席交易员的约翰•拉坦奇奥(John Lattanzio)说，斯坦哈特常常将投资变现。他说，当斯坦哈特对正在发生的事感到拿不准时，就会说，“全部卖掉，我们只持有现金。”

Susan Pulliam