Goldman’s “Best Ideas” Hedge Fund Is Down 2.6% In 2014

If only the $3.2 billion Goldman Sachs Global Opportunities hedge fund had listened to the firm’s equity strategists, life would have been great. However, as Bloomberg reports, the so-called ‘best-ideas’ fund dropped 5.6% in October leaving it down 2.6% for 2014 as interest-rate bets went pear-shaped amid the crash-and-dash that was October’s market manipulation. “We believe monetary policy needs to catch up with growth, and that interest rates in the US and UK are likely to rise by a significant amount,” the fund wrote. It seems Goldman ‘muppeted’ itself. Things aren’t working out… and as a gentle reminder, the fund lost 35% in 2008.

As Bloomberg reports,

A $3.2 billion Goldman Sachs Group Inc. hedge fund that pools some of the firm’s best ideas declined 5.6 percent last month as a bet on the direction of U.S. interest rates went wrong, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Goldman Sachs Global Opportunities Fund, which invests based on the trade ideas from the money-management unit’s fixed-income team, took a position that interest rates would rise, only to see them decline, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

…

“We believe monetary policy needs to catch up with growth, and that interest rates in the US and UK are likely to rise by a significant amount in the next one to two years,” according to a March paper written by the asset management arm.

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The fund, which has counted former presidential contender Mitt Romney among its investors, is a relative value pool that takes positions on rising and falling prices in the global fixed-income and foreign exchange markets. The fund, which was started in 2001, had $3.2 billion in assets as of June, the people said.

Since inception, the fund has generated a net internal rate of return of 9.1 percent, said one of the people. It declined 2.6 percent in 2014 through October. If that performance holds, it would lead to the second calendar-year loss in the fund’s history. The fund declined 35 percent in 2008, according to the people.

The fund is overseen by Jonathan Beinner, co-head of global fixed income at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and Samuel Finkelstein, head of macro strategies within the fixed-income team, according to a regulatory filing this year.