Wall Street Folly

It's Official: We've moved! Our new home is www.wallstreetfolly.com

Please join us over at our new Wall Street Folly site.  We're still working out some kinks, but it's up and running! (Note, if for some reason you're not directed to that site, keep trying.  It gonna take a bit for the redirection of our wallstreetfolly.com url to be propogated through the system.)

Hedge Fund 13F Chart Study update: Baupost Group

 Here's the 13F Chart study for Seth Klarman's Baupost Group updated for Q4 2008. 

List of funds potentially caught in the Dreier scandal is a who's who, including Amaranth's Nick Maounis (who as you may recall, started up another fund called Verition)

A list of hedge funds and other investors who may have gotten bamboozled in the Mark Dreier swindle is found in a grand jury subpoena attached to a court filing made by Dreier's court-appointed receiver Mark Pomerantz. The subpoena requires that any documents pertaining to those funds be produced, so while it doesn't necessarily mean that they all lost money, they're presumably somehow involved (and we'll guess that most of them probably did lose). There are some heavy hitters on the list, including Paulson & Co, Elliott Associates, Davidson, Kempner, Baupost, Sandell Asset Management, Fortress, Perella Weinberg, GSO (Blackstone's alternative investment arm) and Eton Park.  Also notable on the list is Verition -- run by Amaranth's iceberg hitting captain, Nick Maounis. Did he step in it again and strike yet another iceberg?

13F Hedge fund chart studies were updated over the weekend

The 13F hedge fund chart studies we track were updated over the weekend.  You can find them here.

13F Hedge Fund Chart Study: Baupost Group

Here are charts for the stocks in the recently released 13F for Seth Klarman's Baupost Group:

KKR spending like a drunken sailor?; Private equity looking for the IPO exits; Hedge Funder Profiles: Seth Klarman of Baupost and Tim Barakett of Atticus

• KKR’s spending spree raises questions
• Private Equity Seeks IPO Exits
• Manager Frets Over the Market, but Still Outdoes It
• Concentration Proves Winner At Hedge Fund

Seth Klarman profile

Gurufocus.com has a piece on famed value investor Seth Klarman of Baupost (who's the author of the coveted out of print book "Margin of Safety" that now changes hands in the four digits).  It's a summary of a lecture at Columbia Business School, where Klarman outlined some of the investment strategies talked about in his book.

Seth Klarman on the Art of Complex Deep Value Investing - Guru Focus

We have a pretty nice "Margin of Safety" on our purchase...

Leafing through our copy of BusinessWeek we came across a story that made us laugh.  Actually it continues to make us laugh, since we've been watching this develop for months and months.  Hedge fund manager Seth Klarman's out-of-print book "Margin of Safety" continues to escalate in price with offers now as high as $2k.  And that's our very own copy pictured, in virtually pristine condition,  perched on the BusinessWeek story.  We bought it just after it came out in 1991 for less than its $25 list price.  Sweet.  :)

The $700 Used Book - BusinessWeek

Holy profit margin! Klarman out of print book trading in the stratosphere

Amazing! Someone told us that hedge fund manager Seth Klarman's now out of print 1991 book "Margin of Safety" traded on Ebay for $455-495 and a handful of others are being offered there and on Amazon for prices up to $1000.  That's quite a shocker.  An even bigger shocker is that a copy in perfect condition is sitting on our book shelf -- we purchased it shortly after it came out for probably less than its $25 list price.  Who knew that the book would be a 20+ bagger?  :D

Yowsah!

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