The wildly successful hedge-fund manager David Tepper, who said last month at a Las Vegas hedge-fund conference that the financial market was dangerous because the economy wasn’t growing at a sufficient pace, said his concerns have been alleviated.
According to CNBC’s Kate Kelly, Tepper, the founder of $20 billion hedge-fund firm Appaloosa Management LP, thinks we’re out of the woods for now.
From Kelly:
“I just spoke briefly to David Tepper this morning who said his view has changed somewhat since last month when he spoke at a conference and said, famously, it is nervous time in the markets for a number of global macro reasons dealing with Central Banks. Now that the ECB has made this somewhat historic decision today he indicates to me that he is feeling a little bit better.”
Last month Tepper helped trigger a hiccup in the stock-market rally after expressing concerns about deflationary pressures, weaker-than-expected U.S. growth and a European Central Bank that badly needs to ease monetary policy.
“I think the ECB better ease in June,” he said, adding that he didn’t know how far behind the curve euro-zone monetary-policy makers were. “I think they’re really, really far behind,” Tepper noted. Following his comments, S&P futures stumbled to session low.
Tepper also warned a few thousand of his colleagues at the SALT Conference that he wouldn’t be short but “don’t be too freakin’ long.”
Tepper has one of the best long-term performance track records in the hedge fund industry. His Appaloosa Management firm had an estimated 42% return in FY2013. According to Forbes, over the last five years, Tepper’s main hedge fund “has generated annualized net returns of nearly 40%” — enough to give Tepper a personal $3.5 billion payday.
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