Gulf Times- Managers from William Ackman to Jim Rogers made a total of at least $1.4bn in July with wagers against US mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Harbinger Capital Partners staked $665mn that UK mortgage lender HBOS would drop and Sao Paulo-based hedge-fund manager Francisco Meirelles de Andrade’s short selling of Cia. Vale do Rio Doce is also paying off.
More than $1.4tn of equities worldwide are now on loan, about a third higher than at the start of 2007, data compiled by Spitalfields Advisors, the London-based firm specialising in securities lending, show. Almost all of that is being used to speculate that shares will fall, according to James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University who studies short selling.
