market folly

Today we're posting up highlights from CNBC & Institutional Investor's Delivering Alpha Conference.  We've already posted up the best ideas panel and the chase for yield panel, now we're posting up the global opportunities panel featuring Perry Capital's Richard Perry, Fortress' Peter Briger, Harvard Management's Jane Mendillo, and JPMorgan's Mary Callahan Erdoes.


Richard Perry (Perry Capital):  The hedge fund founder thinks the ECB will keep pumping liquidity into the system, straight to banks rather than governments.  He actually feels the crisis in Europe has been blown out of proportion (at least the extent of it) and it will be a smoother recovery than expected.  Perry feels the euro will survive.

Perry said he likes Italy and Spain sovereign debt but emphasized that he's a trader and could change his mind as fast as tomorrow and also said that "at the end of the quarter, you can't have Spain and Italy on your books."  (Related: we've highlighted how Dan Loeb's Third Point has been long Portuguese sovereign debt.)  Perry noted they've been worried about Spain for three years now.  He also says that in Washington they need to focus on spurring mortgage lending and focusing on immigration reform.


Peter Briger (Fortress):  Briger disagrees with Perry and feels that European bank balance sheets have lots of risk assets that haven't been priced appropriately, saying there's still a lot to work through (debt).  He basically wants to get excited about these opportunities but says prices aren't intriguing enough (cash is still king right now for him).  He says we're in a "period of transitional finance."  His favorite play is financial services "garbage collection" over the next 5 years.  He also mentioned that if he was a long-only investor, he'd be intrigued by the US mortgage market.


Jane Mendillo (Harvard Management Co):  She noted how she's seeing a lot of investors looking for distressed credit in Europe, almost in a frenzy, as there's more dollars than opportunities.  They are not piling in now but are indeed looking at long-term opportunities.  Her favorite space right now is natural resources as she thinks there's still inefficiencies there: farmland, energy, water, timberland, infrastructure.


Mary Callahan Erdoes (JPMorgan):  The CEO of JPMorgan Chase Asset Management said her top pick is to short the Euro.  Coming off a trip to Asia, she notes that investors over there are still looking at US opportunities. She also said that "buy and hold" is definitely dead.  Erdoes made the case for European equities (with an emphasis on luxury), calling it a stock picker's market.


Sources: Notes from readers, II's blog, @iimag, @ldelevingne, @footnoted, @aarontask


For more from the Delivering Alpha Conference, head to a summary of the best ideas panel featuring Leon Cooperman, Jim Chanos as well as the hunt for yield panel featuring Marc Lasry.