Dan Benton - Andor Capital

Discussion in 'Wall St. News' started by waggie945, May 11, 2004.

  1. Barron's this week says that the rumors of the demise of Andor Capital are flying around in full force this week as Andor's Investor Meeting was in NY yesterday.

    Last June, Andor was ranked as the 2nd largest hedge-fund around with $9.6 Billion in assets. At year end of 2003, Andor had $8.2 Billion and by the end of the first quarter of 2004 was down to $6.7 Billion.

    Last year, various Andor Funds were down anywhere between 15-22% while the Nasdaq racked up roughly a 50% gain on the year.

    Thru April of this year, the Barron's article states that sources close to the fund say that Andor Tech Fund is -6.3%, Andor Tech Perennial -6.8%, Andor Tech Aggressive -9.3%, and Andor Small Cap -6.4%, with only the Diversified Growth +3.4% and Healthcare +15.5%

    During this same period the Nasdaq lost 4.2% and the Merrill Lynch Technology Index was down 6.7%

    Rumors are circulating that the Fund may just close down, since it is so far away from the "high-water" mark that is required to make investors "whole" again. As a result, retaining key employees and managers will be difficult given the distance away from such a high water mark. Anyone happen to know what was said at the investor meeting in NY yesterday?
     
  2. Cutten

    Cutten

    Any idea what caused the losses? I take it they must have been shorting the rally in 03/04?
     
  3. I'm not sure if I read the Barron's article correctly, but it sounded like they were short a ton of tech late last year, and got hammered by the NAZ rally.

    Their performance thus far for this year is simply on par with the rest of the technology laden indexes, like the NAZ.

    Who knows.
    Maybe they reversed, and got long tech in January!
    And maybe they wound-up seeing a lot of redemptions by investors, forcing them to sell out their new tech longs. This is what could have put a lot of pressure on the chip stocks back in Feb/March/April.

    Just a guess.
    But I would hope to learn more from the investor meeting that was held in NYC yesterday.
     
  4. "Tdy"s Nikkei Kinyu Shimbun"s inside view says recent DLR strength could be due to active repatriation by US hedge fund accounts that are suffering significant losses amidst fears of higher funds raising costs due to possible higher US interest rates. It introduces a survey report that showed major 154 hedge fund accounts"s average return was -4.4% in April, and the worst one was -34.4%. Such actions are linked to unwinding of carry trade that has continued since WTC terror attacks and burst of IT bubble that created excessive liquidity in money markets. Actually not only hedge fund accounts but the entire market had difficult time looking for proper direction due to outlook for higher US rates and China"s tightening. Current US stocks and bonds weakness are also problematic for them. "
     
  5. But I don't believe that Andor gets involved in Macro trades such as the "carry-trade".