Clarium Capital, Jana Partners and Passport Capital: An Update

Well, the numbers just keep rolling in. In a never-ending battle with the market, hedge funds continued to slump in the month of October. First, we'll discuss Clarium Capital; the $5.2 billion fund ran by Peter Thiel. We've covered Thiel and his macro fund extensively on the blog. Thiel had a rough August, but we noted that Clarium was faring pretty well as of the beginning of October; that is, until it shifted to equities.

The month of October meant pain, yet again, for Clarium. Year-to-date, the fund is now -3%. It lost nearly 18% in October mainly due to losses in bonds and undoubtedly the equity exposure it added. It had bet that yields would widen, but instead, it contracted. In its most recent investor letter, Clarium was borrowing $3.90 for every $1 in equity it had as of the week of October 24. Yet, a week later, it increased itsr leverage and borrowed $4.40 for every $1. After being up 27% for the year a few months prior, it has now come full circle like the rest of the market, and is now down for the year. You can check out Clarium's portfolio holdings here, and if want more info on Peter Thiel then head here.

Now, let's turn to Jana Partners, where we see that things have not gotten much easier for it, either. Just last week, we wrote about how Jana had hit a rough patch, and it seems that the pain continued through October. Jana's Piranha fund was -19.2% for the month of October and is now -21.7% for the year. This past month really turned things upside-down for that fund. Its Nirvana fund was -13.2% for the month of October and finds itself -21.9% for the year. Lastly, the Jana Partners fund had a much better October than its other funds, being down 6.6%, but its still down 20.4% for the year. Recently, we noted that Jana had taken a 13.52% stake in Convergys (CVG) and a 5.7% stake in Hayes Lemmerz (HAYZ).

Lastly, according to its most recent investor letter, $3 billion Passport Management LLC lost an astounding 38% for the month of October due to commodity stocks and now finds itself down 44% for the year. The fund was started in 2000 and has a very respectable track record of gaining 27% annually.

You can check out the most recent batch of hedge fund investor letters here and some prior ones here . For more hedge fund performance numbers, check out our last hedge.

Disclosure: None