Einhorn Pares bet on stock rally after market’s relentless climb
By Noah Buhayar, Bloomberg News From SFGate
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) — Hedge-fund manager David Einhorn is taking a more conservative approach to his investment portfolio even as wagers that stocks would fall caused his results to trail the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
Long positions, which gain on rising asset prices, exceeded short bets by 35 percentage points as of Sept. 30 at Greenlight Capital Re Ltd., the Cayman Islands-based reinsurer where Einhorn oversees investments and serves as chairman. That’s down from about 42 percentage points three months earlier, the money manager said today on a conference call.
“As the market continued its relentless climb, we’ve become more conservatively positioned,” he said.
Einhorn, who gained fame for betting on a decline in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. stock before it collapsed in 2008, said most of the portfolio gain in the quarter was from long holdings in companies including Apple Inc. He said he was sticking with his short positions, or wagers that a stock will decline, including one on Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.
“The losses in the short book were broad-based, and we continue to be short most of the companies that contributed to the loss,” he said. “These include a variety of companies which tend to have conventional valuations, rather than speculative story stocks that have caused excessive pain for other short sellers.”
Greenlight Re’s portfolio returned 4 percent in the third quarter and 12 percent in the first nine months of the year, the company said yesterday in a filing. That compares with 5.2 percent and 20 percent for the S&P 500, including dividends.
The reinsurer jumped 4.5 percent to $31.25 at 10:37 a.m. after reporting late yesterday that third-quarter net income climbed to $56.5 million from $46.1 million a year earlier. The stock has advanced 35 percent this year.
For more on this story go to:
See iNews Cayman story published October 28 2013 “Greenlight Capital Re to Release Third Quarter 2013 Results” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/greenlight-capital-re-to-release-third-quarter-2013-results/
