Anson Speaks: Top-Performing Hedge Fund Gets Slightly Bullish

How did we celebrate World Whale Day on Feb. 19? Watchin’ the market movers — a.k.a. the whales. Whale found.

And we’re not talking about the trainer-sized Wailord available for pre-order.

The whale: Anson Hedge Fund is one of the top-performing hedge funds — returning ~45% in both 2020 and 2021. They only lost money once in the past 15 years (2017).

When markets were at their all-time highs in recent years, Anson had the clever idea to bet against the market.

Now they’re starting to change their minds:

• Started 2022 with only 9% long-positions (betting markets will go up).
• Started 2023 with 20% long positions (slowly getting bullish).

Anson was known for betting against the cannabis industry during the 2018-2019 bubble.

Last year, Anson took the opposite side by betting on the cannabis industry, down over 80% from its peak.

Per the firm’s co-founder, Moez Kassam (BBG):

• “Everybody was talking about cannabis being the best thing; we were short.” 📉
• “Then people said cannabis is the worst industry in the world now, so we’re very long” 📈 in the US pot sector.

Well-timed? Not so much. Cannabis stocks continued declining into the year’s end — despite a broad market rally.

Here’s Kassam’s response: “I don’t need to make money on something today, if I know in two, three years it’s going to go up 400%, 500%.”