market folly

According to The Telegraph, hedge fund D.E. Shaw has taken nearly a £100m short position in Barclays (BCS). This short represents 0.26% of the company's shares outstanding and was disclosed to UK regulators via filing.

*Update: In a second filing, D.E. Shaw has disclosed that it has reduced its short position below the -0.25% threshold required for reporting. So while it's still entirely possible they are still short, the size of the position has been reduced.

Keep in mind that in the UK, institutions are still required to report short positions in financials that cross a particular size threshold. You can view our primer on tracking hedge fund positions in the UK for more information.

Regarding other portfolio movement at the hedge fund, we mentioned that D.E. Shaw boosted positions in Global Cash Access (GCA) and LodgeNet (LNET) back in December as well.

D.E. Shaw manages over $21 billion and was founded in 1988 by David E. Shaw. They focus on intertwining technology and finance as they are a hedge fund, private equity firm, and technology development shop all in one.

Taken from their website, they invest “in a wide range of companies and financial instruments within both the major industrialized nations and a number of emerging markets. Its activities range from the deployment of investment strategies based on either mathematical models or human expertise to the acquisition of existing companies and the financing or development of new ones.”

Per Google Finance, Barclays is "a global financial services provider engaged in retail banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking and wealth management. It operates through branches, offices and subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and overseas. Barclays has two business groups: Global Retailing and Commercial Banking, and Investment Banking and Investment Management."

For research directly from the firm, head to D. E. Shaw's insight on leverage.