This is where I spent the last two days:
I and several hundred others each paid $7,500 for a seriously good cause — helping poor people in New York City. Unique to the conference is that the sponsors — including JPMorgan and Hyatt (and probably Bloomberg) — pick up all the expenses. All our attendance fees go 100% to the good work. Most charities have an administration fee — which covers promotion, salaries and expenses. Not this one. 100% of what’s raised goes to their good work. It’s a genius you have to admire.
None of the speakers get paid. They donate their time because they support what Robin Hood does. Many of the hedge fund speakers are in fact on Robin Hood’s board and they pick up the charity’s other operating expenses out of their own pockets.
I attend the conference because I support their work. I’d write them a $7,500 check without a conference. But I attend the conference because I’ll find a stock tip or two that will make me enough money to pay off my $7,500. That’s the pitch that all the attendees believe. It’s brilliant marketing. And it got Robin Hood nearly $6 million from the conference. Who can object?
I’m not objecting, just feeling a little peeved, a little mislead. Maybe I was little naive.
First, I really believed that the “Best Ideas” as presented by the billionaire hedgies were really gong to be valuable ideas — on which I could make a few shekels. Dumb! Wrong. Last year’s best ideas turned out to be lousy ideas — especially if you held them too long. A prime example being Clovis (CLVS). Last year’s pusher of Clovis — Oleg Nodelman — was there again this year pushing more “good ideas” (FGEN and RTRX), but not apologizing for last year’s spectacularly bad idea. Biotech stocks are a huge gamble.
Second, it just dawned on that everyone pushing a stock already had a hefty position in the stock (long or short) — and stood to benefit enormously by the free sales pitch they gave at the conference. There are hundreds of people sitting in that audience on trading stocks on Hyatt’s WiFi and their own personal hotspots. When they hear a “best idea” they buy or short it.
The best example was Universal Insurance Holdings. Anthony Bozza of Lakewoood Capital Management gave a brilliant best idea short pitch on what a disaster Universal Insurance Holdings (UVE) of Florida was. And within moments — literally moments — this is what happened to UVE:
Based on Bozza’s presentation, UVE is still a great short. My favorite Bozza slide was a gem on Sean P. Downes who is UVE’s president and CEO:
I shouldn’t be showing you this slide since we were all asked not to put the results on social media or take photographs of the presenters’ PowerPoint slides. (I took a photograph of the slide above with my new Canon G5X, which I really like. More about that in coming days.)
And I was prepared to honor all the requests for privacy, including no photographs and not tweeting “Best Ideas” — until I realized that every utterance of a stock was instantly reported by Bloomberg and available within seconds on every one of Bloomberg’s godzillion terminals in 70+ countries all over the world…. And appeared in several stories from Business Insider and God knows who else.
If you have a Bloomberg terminal, you can probably find all the stocks mentioned at the conference and who mentioned them. For those of us who don’t have one, here’s a photograph of the Bloomberg screen which they projected up on a big screen. I took the photograph from my seat in the fifth row, using my trusty Canon 65X:
Bloomberg itself has a big story
You can read it. Click here.
You can also google Robin Hood Investors Conference. You’ll find a zillion stories from ValueWalk to Business Insider, etc.
It’s a real pleasure listening and watching the presentations — many of which have involved months and months of expensive, detailed, in-the-field research. These guys are no slouches and — I dare say — deserve their billions. Their power is awesome. At the conference Bill Ackman suggested that Canadian Pacific Railway would do itself good buying Norfolk Southern. By the end of day — before the conference even ended — we heard news that Canadian Pacific had bid $28.4 billion for Norfolk Southern (which it promptly rejected). But Norfolk Southern’s stock is up, and I’m guessing Mr. Ackman’s net worth.
In coming days, I’ll report more on what I learned yesterday. Personally I did not buy or sell anything based on what I heard over the last two days. I would have sold UVE short this morning, had they not already knocked it down 10% yesterday. Based on what I heard, it’s going to zero, zippo, niente, with the next storm in Florida.
Robin Hood is already selling tickets to next year’s conference — at 10% off, which might be 20% if they move on their promise to bump next year’s conference up by 10%. I don’t have a link, yet.
Harry Newton who has been told that Frontline last night was truly frightening. It’s being repeated this evening. It’s about the rise of ISIS in Afghanistan and how they train jihadists.
With good sounding charities I always check on how they use their (your) money. Most do far more harm then good supporting “poor” people’s drug and bad health habits rather than demanding corrective behavior before “helping”. Today these poor, even those living under bridges, have nice looking and warm clothing, backpacks, sleeping bag and tents, food welfare cards, pet dogs, even cellphones (usually more than one) with free service and decent bicycles often with a wagon. Plus access to their drugs of choice. The charities just make it easy for them to continue, called enabling. It makes to donators “feel good”; it makes the problem worse, much worse.
Gee Harry…Islam is a ‘religion’ of peace…HAH! Islam means ‘submission’. But dont worry..your non Muslim prezident is breaking his neck to insure radical Islam becomes majority Islam, in America. Wonder if you regret your vote for that criminal.