Saturday, November 1, 2008

Greenlight, Redlight.



Greenlight Capital, the long/short hedge fund run by wunderkid David Einhorn, has hit an exceptional "rough patch". I'll be honest, I hate to write this story as I have enormous admiration for David, both professionally (HE was the one who called out Lehman Brothers) and personally (very philanthropic...ALD).

While Greenlight has averaged greater than 25% per annum, I don't believe we'll be seeing such performance this year. To begin, the "word on the street" is that Greenlight was heavily involved in the VW/Porsche trade, which obviously didn't play out so well. Next, his $7.3MM stake in VeraSun Energy has now been all but wiped out, as the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday. Then there is Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NGS:GLDE), Greenlight's Grand Cayman P&C reinsurer. The company, which invests via David's DME Advisors, has seen its shares drop 40% this year alone.

So has this poker champion lost his touch?

Not a chance. Put me down as the first one to bet on an Einhorn comeback.