Links of Interest - 12/9/08

Even hedge funds that are doing well are seeing withdraws (see Reuters article). Why sell a good fund? As it turns out, the main sellers could be those that operate fund-of-funds. As a result of other funds (holdings) being down, redemption request at FoF are causing selling across the board, dragging down performing funds as well.

There is an interesting article from Cam Hui at SeekingAlpha discussing the need for hedge funds to return to basics, and for investors to rethink their expectations. Of interest from the article is the quote: "Hedge fund investors found out what they had wasn’t a contract with a hedge fund manager, but a call option on a management contract. When the incentive fees dried up, the manager packed up and went away." This gives me an idea. How about selling an option on ......, never mind.

Rumors of a Goldman / Citi merger have changed to a Goldman / Morgan Stanley merger (see Here Is The City News article). Still waiting for the Goldman / Yahoo / Microsoft rumor to surface.

I was just kidding about the 10 million. I did not want a bonus afterall (see Clusterstock article). Merrill and/or Thain doing damage control.

Fleckenstein, a regular guest on Fast Money, is calling it quits, or at least closing his short-only portfolio (see FINalternatives article). He is planning to open a new fund (not a hedge fund) that would be available to retail investors (ie., everyone). In a blog post, Fleckenstein states "I now (sic) longer want to run a short-only hedge fund, as it is very stressful, nerve-wracking and generally not very much fund (sic)." Then again, the money was nice .........

There is an interesting New York Magazine article on Jim Chanos. Even though he seems to be on CNBC just about every time you turn around, the article provides a little more detail on his background, and provides some insight into his approach. Interesting read.