Hedge funds retrench after getting pummeled during wild March

By Nell Mackenzie, Carolina Mandl and Summer Zhen LONDON/NEW YORK/HONG KONG (Reuters) – March’s market turmoil has forced many macro and trend-following hedge funds to cut bait on bad portfolio bets and caused at least one bank that lends to them to scrutinize its clients’ exposure, according to sources and preliminary data reviewed by Reuters….

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What crisis? U.S. bank-focused ETFs see strongest demand in months in March

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal (Reuters) – March recorded the worst U.S. bank failures since the 2008 crisis, but that did not stop some investors from snapping up battered financial stocks to bolster their bets on the sector’s long-term health, fund-flow data showed. Exchange-traded funds tracking U.S. regional banks saw their strongest net inflows in months,…

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Hindenburg says Block response confirms it inflated Cash App user counts

(Reuters) – U.S. short seller Hindenburg Research said on Friday Block Inc’s response to its allegations confirmed it had reported inflated user counts on its Cash App to investors for years. The payments firm led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said on Thursday that 44 million of its more than 51 million monthly active customers…

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Wells Fargo to pay $97 million for sanctions compliance failures

By Hannah Lang (Reuters) -Wells Fargo & Co will pay fines of about $97.8 million for inadequate oversight of its compliance risks, enabling the apparent violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, Syria and Sudan, federal authorities said on Thursday. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the bank’s…

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Shorting global banks fetches $14.3 billion in paper profit in March – S3 Partners

(Reuters) – Short sellers made $14.3 billion in paper profit from their bearish bets on global banking stocks in March, according to analytics firm S3 Partners, as the collapse of U.S. lender Silicon Valley Bank reverberated across the sector. Fresh short selling in the banking sector increased by 11.4%, or $12.8 billion, globally in March, taking…

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BlackRock calls on clients to rethink hedging strategy after UK pension crisis

By Tommy Wilkes LONDON (Reuters) – BlackRock’s liability-driven investment business is urging some smaller UK pension fund clients to stop splitting assets across multiple managers, as it tries to cut the complexity and risks of a strategy that imploded last year. Asset managers worry new rules to make LDI investing more robust could render the…

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