Netflix: Bearish Engulfing Or Bullish Test Of Support?

Want Better Hedge Fund Returns? Try One Led by a Woman

DealBook, January 15th, 2014

By William Alden

In the world of hedge funds, a relative few have a woman at the helm. And yet, these funds may be the standouts from the bunch, a new report argues.

In the years since the financial crisis, hedge funds managed by women performed better than a broader index that reflects the performance of the industry, according to a report released on Wednesday by the professional services firm Rothstein Kass. The report seeks to show that this “alpha” – superior returns, in Wall Street speak – is no mere fluke.

“There is meaningful alpha to be gained from investing in women-owned and -managed funds,” Meredith Jones, a director at Rothstein Kass who wrote the report, said in an interview. “There appear to be both behavioral and biological factors that impact women’s ability to manage money and make them consistent.”

From the beginning of 2007 through June 2013 – a period that includes the dark days of the crisis – a Rothstein Kass index of women-run hedge funds returned 6 percent, the report says. By comparison, the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, released by Hedge Fund Research, fell 1.1 percent during that time, according to the report.

Last year through November, the index of women-run funds had a 9.8 percent return, compared with a 6.13 percent rise in the broader index, the research showed. (Still, both indexes fell short of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, which rose about 27 percent during that time.)

The report, titled “Women in Alternative Investments: A Marathon, Not a Sprint,” used a group of 82 hedge funds managed or owned by women. Last year, the firm said that female hedge fund managers produced a return of 8.95 percent through the third quarter of 2012, compared with a 2.69 percent net return for the broader index.

While highlighting the accomplishments of women in hedge funds, private equity and venture capital, this year’s report also draws attention to persistent gender disparities on Wall Street.

The research, based on a survey in September and October of 440 senior women in the alternative investments business, suggests that the vast majority of the top jobs are held by men. Of the women surveyed, only 15.5 percent said their firm was owned or managed by a woman. Among hedge funds in particular, 21.4 percent were owned or managed by women.

About 42 percent of the respondents said their firm had no general partners who were women. And nearly 40 percent of the firms included in the survey had no women on their investment committees.

In that context, hedge funds run by women remain something of a niche. Some institutional investors, like public pension funds, have a specific mandate to invest a portion of their money in funds run by women or minorities.

Though these mandates can be motivated by political factors, Rothstein Kass is seeking to show that investing with women managers can be a wise choice for purely financial reasons. A handful of studies have suggested that women traders behave differently than their male counterparts, acting less impulsively.

John Coates, a former trader who is now a research fellow in neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, argued in a 2012 book, “The Hour Between Dog and Wolf,” that testosterone contributed to market swings. Hiring more women on trading floors, he wrote, might have a stabilizing effect.

But these ideas are far from mainstream, and the industry has been slow to change. A fourth of investors surveyed by Rothstein Kass said they expected their allocations to women-run funds to increase “somewhat” in 2014, while 2 percent expected to allocate “significantly” more money.

Though the study expected more women to start their own funds in the coming years, the scarcity of such funds is itself an obstacle, a “chicken or the egg” problem, said Kelly Easterling, an audit principal at Rothstein Kass who contributed to the report.

“Without a large supply of funds, it’s difficult to achieve appropriate portfolio diversification or, for that matter, put enough money to work to move the performance dial,” she said in a statement quoted in the report. “On the other hand, until there is more money flowing to women-owned and -managed funds, it’s unlikely that there will be a stampede of new fund launches.”

$NFLX reverses course after big gain following earnings. Reed Hastings during earnings videocast: ““Every time I read a story about Netflix is the highest appreciating stock in the S&P 500, it worries me because that was the exact headline that we used to see in 2003.” http://yhoo.it/1deOhGo

#NYSE : $UA · Under Armour, Inc.  

40.4% gain 3-months : 56.35 -> 79.11   0.1% gain 2-weeks   : 79.0 -> 79.11

1,154,500 median volume (3 months) …max: 5,778,100 …avg: 1,260,723 …min: 475,400

70.1%  daily positive gains (47/67 days)

Let’s close out 2013 with this: The 20 smartest things Jeff Bezos has ever said. (You’re welcome.) http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/09/the-25-smartest-things-jeff-bezos-has-ever-said.aspx#.Ur5ADWRDvRc

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is having a fantastic day. The stock hit a new all time high of $49.66. However, the charts tell the future and the future is…

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is having a fantastic day. The stock hit a new all time high of $49.66. However, the charts tell the future and the future is not green for Facebook. Instead, it is cluttered with down days and a pull back to the $45.65 and $42.45 levels. So why when the world is so bullish on Facebook is the top in? The answer is somewhat simple. First, with the world so bullish on Facebook or on any stock, one must be wary as a reversal is likely. A great example of this was Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). When the stock was at $700 a share, analysts were upgrading like crazy and the whole world was talking about it. This has now happened with Facebook. Today, happens to coincide with an analyst upgrade as well. Go figure, an analyst upgrades the stock now when it is up 100% in the last few months. Definitely similar to Apple at $700 per share. When looking at the stock chart of Facebook, the first thing that jumps out to me is the symmetry. The price hovered around $25.00 a share for a long period. After earnings it shot up to a high of $49.66. This is a 100% move in the stock. In addition, notice the selling that has come in off the highs today. Major distribution from institutions. Last, notice the tail on the chart today. As the stock declines, it forms what could be a topping tail on the daily chart. Should a topping tail form, it will solidify a major top in the stock for a pull back to the mentioned levels of $45.65 and $42.45. Normally, I do not mention valuation but even that is way beyond stretched. The bottom line sits at an overbought Facebook chart that has too many amateur bulls long and reversal signals everywhere. Cheers to a great shorting opportunity.  Gareth Soloway InTheMoneyStocks.com

US Olympic CEO: Russian bombings ‘a preview of what could happen’ in Sochi

(Photo via TODAY)

With just over a month to go before the Winter Olympics get underway in Russia, a top U.S. Olympic official addressed the pair of deadly attacks during a 24-hour period this week in the Russian city of Volgograd. 

More from TODAY

Petraeus Op-ed on Iraq is the latest in his elaborate comeback

By Brian Jones, October 30th from Business Insider

America loves a comeback kid, and Former CIA Director and retired Army Gen. David Petraeus is on a comeback tour. 

After resigning in disgrace as Director of the CIA last year because of an extra-martial affair, Petraeus has worked hard at getting back to a good place in the eyes of the American people.  

The first step was a philanthropic tour as a professor at New York City's public university, for which he was paid just $1. 

It didn't go as well as planned, as students affiliated virulently protested his presence there. Six were eventually arrested. 

But why is Petraeus so invested in rehabilitating his image? Perhaps he is mulling a run for political office. Maybe he is just trying to protect a once virtually spotless legacy.

The keystone of that legacy is the belief that Petraeus won the war in Iraq. He commanded the war during President George W. Bush's "surge" and is widely heralded as the architect of the Counterinsurgency strategy that surge forces worked to implement. 

Yesterday, Petraeus took the next step toward that end with an exhaustive, nearly 8,000 word op-ed in Foreign Policy called "How We Won In Iraq."

The timing is odd. Right now, Iraq is on fire. More than 7,000 civilians have been killed this year, a pretty clear indication that whatever perceived security gains were made prior to the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. combat forces were not sustainable. And so it's strange for Petraeus to take this moment to remind everyone about his greatest "success" in Iraq.

And yet he does, in dense fashion. Using the word "surge" 74 times. 

"I recognized early on that I had become the face of the surge," he writes. "I had not asked for this role, but whether I liked it or not, I had to fill it."

He breaks his editorial down into sections:

The Surge of Forces and the Surge of Ideas

The Sunni Awakening and Reconciliation

Targeted Special Operations

The Development of Iraqi Security Forces

The Civilian Components

Detainee Operations and Rule-of-Law Initiatives

The Iraqi Political Component and Strategic Communications

The Magnitude of the Difficulty

Commanding MNF-I

The Road Ahead

Petraeus shows off his Ivy League doctorate in political science and years of first-hand experience in the region. And regardless of the motives, it's a remarkable account  from the perspective of the general who ran the war — a rare historical insight.

He also addresses some of the more questionable and ambiguous history of U.S. operations in Iraq, including whether the surge precipitated the Anbar Awakening.

He concedes that the Anbar Awakening started before the surge, and before he arrived in the region, but he claims his strategies made it spread throughout Iraq.

"The spread of the Awakening was not serendipity; it was the result of a deliberate decision I took soon after taking command," he says. 

But embracing the Awakening often meant forming alliances with the same people who had previously been fighting American forces for years. Petraeus acknowledged it was a tough sell to other military leaders.

"Many correctly pointed out that the leaders and members of the groups that wanted to reconcile with us groups that might be willing to embrace the Awakening ... had American blood on their hands." 

Simultaneous to the surge, Petraeus, working with the then commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, a lieutenant general named Stanley McChrystal, expanded a program to capture or kill high-level operatives. 

"Although I publicly acknowledged from the outset that we would not be able to kill or capture our way to victory (hence the need to support the Awakening)," Petraeus writes, "killing or capturing the most important of the 'irreconcilables' was an inescapable and hugely important element of our strategy."

He concluded by saying that Iraq has slipped back into chaos because the surge tactics stopped:

What mattered most was the surge of ideas -- concepts that embraced security of the people by "living with them," initiatives to promote reconciliation with elements of the population that felt they had no incentive to support the new Iraq, ramping up of precise operations that targeted the key "irreconcilables," the embrace of an enhanced comprehensive civil-military approach, increased attention to various aspects of the rule of law, improvements to infrastructure and basic services, and support for various political actions that helped bridge ethno-sectarian divides.

But Petraeus' account of the history of the war was immediately met with some criticism:

Chase Winter, an international development officer at the American University of Iraq, tweeted that Petraeus outlined "what we did to win, [without] defining winning."

"For Petraeus to write this while Iraq burns takes enormous balls," tweeted Joshua Foust, a former intelligence analyst and freelance journalist.

The claim that the surge worked in Iraq is a bit of a point of contention. An Army lieutenant colonel named Daniel Davis gained notoriety last year by publishing a blistering account of the war and said that any gains made were pure luck. Davis was deployed to Iraq from 2008-2009. 

NEW YORK Oct 13 (Reuters) - A loss at JPMorgan Chase & Co’s private equity group signals a tough quarter for buyout shops, as global economic uncertainty and market declines hit the value of their investments.JPMorgan said on Thursday its private equity segment swung to a loss of $347 million...