market folly

Dan Loeb's hedge fund firm Third Point LLC has filed yet another amended 13D with the SEC. This time around, Loeb was continuing to sell shares of Maguire Properties (MPG) as they now show a 3.75% ownership stake in the company with 1,800,000 shares. The filing was made due to activity on July 8th, 2009. Previously, when Loeb filed the first amended 13D, he owned 5.02% of the company with 2,410,000 shares. Clearly though, Third Point has been reducing their position. To see what other positions Third Point owns, you can check out their portfolio here.

For the month of June, Loeb's Offshore fund was up 1.8% and is now up 7.2% year to date. Their Partners LP was up 1% for June and is up 5.6% ytd. Their Partners Qualified fund was up 1.4% for June and is up 5.6% for the year. Lastly, their Third Point Ultra fund was up 1.8% for June and is up 8.4% for 2009. We also see some other metrics updated as their Sharpe Ratio since inception is 1.2 while their correlation to the S&P500 since inception is 0.4. Breaking down their exposure by sector, we see that Third Point was net long financials and healthcare. Their largest short position was on the consumer. However, they had an equally large long position leaving them almost net neutral on the consumer. So, we don't see a whole lot of short exposure reflected. You can see Third Point's entire performance breakdown in our June 2009 hedge fund performance numbers post.

Third Point is a $2 billion activist and value based hedge fund. Specifically, they deem themselves to be "event driven, value oriented investors." Loeb founded the firm back in 1995 with $3.3 million in seed capital and is still running the show these days. While Third Point is technically an activist fund, Loeb often has numerous passive investments as well. Loeb himself is quite well known for his searing and critical letters to management of various companies. Third Point has seen annual returns averaging over 15% since inception (including the crazy year that was 2008), a Sharpe Ratio of 0.9, and a correlation to the S&P500 of 0.4.

Taken from Google Finance, Maguire Properties is "a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT). The Company is the owner and operator of Class A office properties in the Los Angeles Central Business District (LACBD) and is primarily focused on owning and operating office properties in the high-barrier-to-entry Southern California market."