The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World's Top Hedge Funds Read Free

risk and mitigated losses for thousands of clients and outside parties. Hearing about how the bank would work closely with companies advising on potential mergers and takeover targets seemed exciting—this must be what Carl Icahn does, I thought. Citigroup had “the big balance sheet” that dwarfed many of the more prestigious investment banking teams on the Street, and so we were always allowed into the consortium for deals—even as the deal arranger. I left the building with an offer for a semester internship in hand, convinced I had found my calling with the good guys—good guys with nice shoes.
     
    I ended up taking my Series 7 exam and staying with the bank for three and a half years while attending school. Eventually, I moved to the Wall Street Journal after a brief stint at Merrill Lynch in its Global Research & Economics division. During my time at the Journal , the first cracks in the financial system were beginning to show, but it was still unclear how far the plague would spread. After about a year, by late 2007, working at the Journal and following financial stories so closely—minute to minute—made me nostalgic. Figuring everything was mostly okay but looking for an experience beyond plain vanilla banking, I decided to try to go back to the Street and had been interviewing with a bunch of small organizations called “hedge funds,” one of which was founded by a very famous investor: George Soros.
     
    I got called for an interview at the Quantum Fund for a position opening for an analyst covering either retail or health care companies. At the interviews, two young research analysts in their mid- to late 20s wanted to know if I had the technical skills to rip apart an annual report and process all the numbers in a way that could help the team discover if there was any investing potential on the long or short side across industries. After a few simple questions, my interviewer quickly discovered I knew very little about what short-selling—or borrowing stock to sell in the market at its current price with the expectation of further declines—was even about. Little did I know I was about to find myself in the center of it all.
     
    Around the same time as the interview at Quantum Fund, I got an unsolicited e-mail from CNBC, asking if I’d come in for an interview. Growing up watching the network with my father as he talked about the stocks he was buying and selling, I was naturally curious and excited to see what the business news network would be like. The moment I stepped onto the news desk, it was like a different world. Suddenly, all of the news was in real time, up to the second. The buzz, the energy, the bright lights all captivated me. Spending the past few years poring over financial statements, loan documents, credit agreements, and deal “pitch books,” the things the anchors were saying right in front of my eyes on the set made sense to me. I had no formal journalism training or TV experience but my time on the Street landed me the job as a producer on Squawk Box .
     
    A Hedge-ucation
     
    Very quickly after I landed at CNBC in February 2008, it became clear to the entire world that something was seriously wrong—the nation’s entire financial system became crippled by toxic credit products. Words like subprime mortgages began appearing at an almost rapid pace in the news, along with structured investment vehicles (SIVs) and credit derivatives.
     
    Around April, buzz started to spread around a hedge fund manager, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, and his new book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time , detailing his six-year battle with a company he was short, Allied Capital. David agreed to come on Squawk Box to talk about his book the following month. In preparation for the segment, I got an advance copy of the book and started marking it up with colorful Post-it notes with items to remember and reference on the show. The depth of his research and conviction was inspiring to