We’ve heard plenty of fund managers blame the macro environment and the lack of a definitive economic trend for the drought in returns over recent years, but in his latest blast, famed – or perhaps infamous – contrarian Hugh Hendry hold his hands up, admitting his shortcomings and his own losses.
H/T Zero Hedge
“I fear that our community has overloaded on top of the trend a normative value judgment about how the world is being organized by monetary authorities,” Hendry told Hugh H in an exclusive interview published on Friday. “And the view is rather prejudicial: [our community] doesn’t like it. And I posted a letter saying, we’re dying on the year and we do not blame monetary policy.”
Hugh Hendry adds that there have been some outstanding trends in the last few years which he and other major players have missed out on, such as the CNH float in China, which went from 2009 to the first quarter of 2014. “An immense trade, which no-one participated in” Hendry said. He’s also reinvigorated by the “intellectual car crash” that was the Brexit vote, which allowed a reassignment of probabilities for questioning the euro, in what Hendry is calling an immensely interesting time for macro.
Speaking at length in an another discussion with Real Vision TV and Raoul Pal, Hendry said Brexit really offers the chance to escape the confined trajectory contributing to the perceived malaise in the sector over the past four years. The probability of the euro state reneging with 28 members was one thing, with strong forces holding them together, he said, but now there are 27 it’s quite another.
One to thing to note: since Hugh Hendry never spends more than four weeks in the same place, (he prefers to test his engagement with the feel of different time zones) the guys at RealVision can be commended for at least getting him to sit still for just over an hour for this interview.
There is more in the full Real Vision video, including his current positions on Mexico bonds, although some of the highlights are captured in the clip above. But it was the “intellectual travesty of Brexit” and an inability to see it coming that really got Hendry animated. He’s focused on the upcoming Italian constitutional referendum and he’s also quite taken with the volatile political picture in Paris, in particular, the likelihood of the president not being endorsed by his party to run again for the first time and France seen as the next candidate for the exit. Hendry explains how he’s going to make money from the discord, investing in the spread between German over Italian BTPs.
Hugh Hendry Recalls His “Great Monster P&L Trade” That “Murdered” His Counterparty
Video below see more at Zero Hedge
