Barbara Shecter of the National Post reports AIMCo assets top $200 billion as public equities drive gains:

Alberta Investment Management Corp. surpassed $200 billion in assets under management with a 7.1 per cent net investment return in the first half of the year marked by conflict in the Middle East, U.S. trade policy uncertainty and evolving inflation expectations.

The provincial Crown corporation that invests on behalf of pensions, endowments and government funds had $210.7 billion in assets under management as of June 30.

Chief investment officer Justin Lord said the trade situation and other geopolitical and macroeconomic developments are front and centre for the globally invested fund, which has a strong presence in North America. About 40 per cent of AIMCo’s assets are invested in Canada.

“A prolonged dispute, whether it’s in the Middle East (or) whether it’s trade-related, certainly could create headwinds for the Canadian economy, for the equity market,” he said. “And that’s something we’re monitoring closely.”

Public equities were the strongest contributor to AIMCo’s performance in the first half of the year, benefiting from resilient corporate earnings and continued strength in AI-related sectors and global equity markets. The results were moderated, however, by private equity, where there was lower transaction activity and valuation pressure in software-related investments.

“Private equity, perhaps even more so today, is playing a vital role in diversification across our equity exposures,” Lord said.

“A number of of equity markets, be it global or emerging markets, are really reliant on a couple of very similar underlying themes with respect to where we’re seeing earnings growth and price appreciation contributing to that strong performance,” he added.

AIMCo’s private equity program is focused on fund and co-investment, and Lord said the team is seeing a number of opportunities that align with the fund’s strategy, as well as an increase in secondary deal flow.  

Public equities and absolute return strategies make up the bulk of AIMCo’s portfolio, at 38 per cent. The balance is split between private markets and money market and fixed income.

Lord said he plans to connect next month with “peers” and “partners” attending the Canada Investment Summit on Sept. 14 and 15, a conference convened by Prime Minister Carney that has a guest list of large global investment funds.

“We do have a significant amount of our assets invested here across a number of different asset classes and, should compelling opportunities arise, we’d be happy to … underwrite those transactions, much like we would in any other jurisdiction,” he said.

Lord said there are no hard targets or caps on AIMCo’s investments in Canada.

“We have a strong interest in seeing, obviously, a competitive and attractive investment environment here in our own backyard,” he said, “but we do invest globally on behalf of our clients and … ultimately, our responsibility is to deliver that long-term return for clients, and that means investing where we see the best opportunity to create value over time.”

Today, AIMCo issued a press release stating it has surpassed $200 billion in assets under management: 

AIMCo reached a significant milestone in the first half of 2026, surpassing $200 billion in assets under management while continuing to deliver strong long-term investment results for clients.

At the halfway mark of 2026, AIMCo’s Balanced Fund earned a 4-year annualized net investment return of 9.9% and a 10-year annualized net investment return of 7.8% for clients.

For the six-month period ending June 30, 2026, the Balanced Fund’s net investment return was 7.2%.

Chief Investment Officer Justin Lord shares more details on the results (watch below and here).

You can also read the brief report AIMCo put out at the bottom of the page under Justin's video here.

Below, I provide the details:

 

Some quick points. Overall, the results are solid and better than most of its peers, reflecting AIMCo's higher exposure to public markets.

Public Equities led the gains but there were positive contributions from Public Fixed Income, Private Mortgages, Private Debt and Loan, and Infrastructure.

Performance in private market portfolios, particularly Private Equity, moderated overall results amid lower transaction activity and valuation pressure in software-related investments.

Discussion With Justin Lord, AIMCo's CIO, On Mid-Year Results

Earlier today, I had a chance to catch up with AIMCo CIO Justin Lord to go over mid-year results. 

I want to begin by thanking him as well as Sabrina Bnaghoo and Alexandra Zabjek for setting up this Teams meeting, sending me material and assisting the meeting.

Keep in mind, I spoke with Justin in late March when I covered AIMCo's 2025 results here.

At the time, AIMCo's corporate annual report was not available, but it has since been released and is available here.

Justin began by giving me an overview of the results:

Yeah, certainly a couple of main points: Our mid-year updates tend to focus on the broader portfolio, the amalgamation of the client portfolios across the balanced fund. As you'll see, the net investment return was 7.2% for the first half of the year. That's $13.6 billion in net investment return across our client accounts.

Our four-year annualized number is 9.9%, reflecting that strong long-term performance that our clients depend upon and certainly positively impacting the 10-year annualized net return of 7.8%. As a long-term investor, we’re focused here with respect to fulfilling our mandate and meeting clients' needs. The other point to note, AIMCo did surpass $200 billion in assets other management as well, just reflecting that continued growth and collective scale of our clients across pension, insurance and government funds that are entrusted to us to manage.

But just owing to that scale that does position us to continue to access compelling investment opportunities that enhance that ability to deliver the long-term value on behalf of our clients and all Albertans. This is really key to our mandate, and I think we're demonstrating that we're achieving that successfully. One thing to note, our pension clients, for example, are currently fully funded, which should give all Albertans with a public pension plan a great deal of comfort regarding their financial futures.

And last but not least, the investment strategy that we put in place at the beginning of the year or at the end of 2025 has thus far proven to be moving in the right direction, with a focus on our core strategic capabilities, our competitive advantage from both structural and developed perspective, focusing on the strategic capabilities from a liquidity management portfolio construction perspective as it relates to our client portfolios overall.

Perhaps I'll leave it there, Leo, and we can jump into what you have with respect to asset classes, just noting that we'll keep some of the asset class level comments high-level. Again, we don't publish the underlying performance at mid-year and happy to go into much more detail once annual results are available, as we did last time.

I told Justin that I don't know what the (blended) actuarial hurdle rate is at AIMCo (6% or 6.3%?), but I said any time you're delivering above 7% on mid-year results, that is very strong and I especially noted the 9.9% annualized return over the last four years because that's excellent.

I asked him if they beat their benchmark in the first half and he replied:

I don't believe as a part of the mid-year results we focus on or provide those additional details, Leo. So I can't comment specifically given that at the total client portfolio level, we have a number of asset classes that will have various valuation schedules throughout the year. 

Perhaps what I can comment on is that across public markets, despite the continuing concentration that we're seeing in underlying performance in equity indices, both certainly, when looking at global and emerging market indices as a whole, the team has been able to, through portfolio construction exposures, absolute return exposures and various active mandates, keep up with or outperform their benchmarks year to date. That's a big mid-year number and I certainly wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves until annual results are out.

Fair enough. I asked Justin about their new strategy and whether or not they are taking more risk in public or private equities. He replied:

It really impacts each asset class to ensure alignment with our overarching strategy and leaning into the structural development sources of edge across the AIMCo platform. 

Where we've made a few changes in public markets are really to ensure that we're providing the beta across our portfolio that our clients expect as efficiently as possible with a, I guess, renewed or refocused mandate from liquidity, collateral balance sheet management perspective.

And then the second part of that is ensuring the consistency of alpha generation across those mandates. So where we're taking active risk has evolved slightly with a focus on areas internally that we have a demonstrated capability or a proven track record and then certainly partnering with our external managers in areas where we feel active risk is attractively priced overall as we've seen, probably a slight reduction in active risk taking through security selection across the portfolio and an increase or maintain level of active risk and exposure through absolute return strategies internally and externally, both for direct client allocations to the absolute return product in their asset mix and/or portable alpha exposures on top of our synthetic beta within the equity platform.

I noted AIMCo uses a portable alpha structure to add alpha over their beta exposure and that absolute return strategies (hedge funds) have done well for all major pension funds over the last few years.

He replied: 

Yes. And I think we're in an environment where that can potentially continue as we see increasing dispersion between asset classes, certainly a higher base rate of interest rates that creates a return profile that should be a spread above those fixed income rates of return that tends to meet clients return expectations not only from a direct allocation perspective, but certainly as a very efficient form of active risk at the total client portfolio level.

I agree with that assertion and will add that higher interest rates also mean a higher hurdle rate for internal and external absolute return strategies as the T-bill rate has risen.

We moved on to private markets, where I noted that some headwinds are impacting private equity returns. I noted that certain segments of real estate seem to be turning the corner and infrastructure remains steady, providing pension funds with solid, long-dated, inflation-adjusted returns. 

Justin responded:

We spend a lot of time working with our clients and their respective asset class teams to really, I guess, hone in and define the role that those asset classes play in our clients’ portfolios. 

When thinking about what we need exposure to in this environment, obviously, we're looking for growth from a portfolio building block perspective, income, inflation protection, and broader diversification impacts or contribution at the client portfolio level. 

Specifically, infrastructure right now is fulfilling a number of those needs from a growth exposure to a degree, but primarily income and inflation protection as a function of the underlying quality of the portfolio, the quality of cash flows that are underwritten across the portfolio of assets. We're continuing to see attractive opportunities in infrastructure globally, both domestically and globally as it relates to our underlying product strategy. We're spending probably more time in the core-plus sub-segment of the market. There's a lot of competition for traditional core infrastructure assets, much like we had seen private credit over the last number of years when capital flows to parts of these markets, it can compress returns, and our view is that that sometimes creates opportunities where you might be not be fairly compensated for the overall risk that you're taking. 

So really with an overarching philosophy of looking for those opportunity sets across our asset classes where risk is attractively priced, let’s call it part art and science from a portfolio construction perspective.

And we’re seeing attractive deal flow there, pockets of private credit as well, despite valuations and credit spreads that are still slightly elevated. This just puts more importance on the underlying underwriting and structuring of this exposure in general. 

And then last but not least, you had mentioned private equity. And our private equity platform and strategy has been in place for over a decade now under Peter's leadership with , as you'll be familiar with, a fund and co-invest model overall. Certainly, we are seeing some green shoots as it relates to liquidity with capital markets activity and the IPO pipeline really coming to fruition. It feels like the market's been waiting for this for a number of years, and this amount of deal flow has been well received. That is a positive. We'd like to see that continue. We're assessing opportunities across certainly our manager and co-investment network, a growing secondary opportunity set in general and a broader capital solutions or strategic capital solutions opportunity set, which almost fits in between a private equity or private credit allocation, which we think is attractively priced risk exposure in general that is generated by our partnership network with both GPs and issuers. 

Coming back to the role that private equity plays in the portfolio and the roles we're looking for from our asset classes as they contribute to our clients’ total portfolios, the one of diversification stands out as well, given the underlying concentration across not only public equity markets but you're seeing a fair amount of underlying macro drivers, obviously associated with the proliferation of artificial intelligence and capex, impacting not only public equities, but investment-grade public fixed income, public credit, private credit exposures, and to a degree some infrastructure and real estate exposures as well. So looking at the role that private equity plays in diversifying the growth factor in portfolios in general, it's likely to be as important in the next five to 10 years as it has been over the last decade.

Justin kept hammering the point of why private equity remains an important asset class from a diversification perspective and he's right. When growth-oriented public equity indexes finally suffer a protracted bear market, whenever that happens, many value-oriented segments of private equity will finally outperform (stale pricing also adds to diversification).

I asked him if co-investments figure prominently in infrastructure at AIMCo as they do in private equity and he replied:

Our infrastructure portfolio is actually broad, and we do have obviously fund and co-investment relationships as well. Direct investments are a much smaller part of the private equity strategy at AIMCo and owing to the strategic tilt a little over 10 years ago with the refocus of the program on the fund relationship and co-investment model.

I asked Justin what he sees in Real Estate because from my discussions, it seems like there is an inflection going on there. He replied:

I would agree. Perhaps inflection is maybe too strong of a word. We are seeing attractive deal flow across a number of geographies and sectors within real estate as the industry recovers. At different places, there's a lot of differentiation, be it office, grocery, retail, multifamily, or industrial exposures, and also depending on geography. We do have a view that there are attractive opportunity sets today and we expect to be active in real estate over the coming quarters and years. And perhaps more of a continued gradual recovery than an inflection point or something that we would see a sharp reversal.

I asked him if it's fair to say AIMCo has more exposure to Canadian real estate than its peers and he replied:

I'm not sure comparing to the other funds. We have a Canadian and a global real estate product. Our Canadian product is larger than our global product and the two strategies have a bit of a different focus. Global product being traditionally more opportunistic and Canada being more focused and really aligned with where we're evolving our real estate program to ensure that those roles of income generation and inflation protection are present for our clients’ allocations.

I noted AIMCo's allocation to public markets is roughly 70% and asked him if they are happy with the current allocation to privates. He responded:

We're comfortable with current allocations as it stands. We do have, where we would be under allocated in private markets, those risk exposures are represented by public markets. So to the degree that we are allocating additional capital across infrastructure, real estate, private credit and or private equity, there could be small reductions in public market allocations. You're correct in your analysis, Leo, I believe as of mid-year, we’re just under 70% of public markets as a whole. We do include absolute return allocations, those direct allocations in the public equities illustration as you'll see in the report also.

I also noted some of their peers have increased their allocation to Canadian equities (notably OMERS) this year and asked him if they did so too. He replied:

Our allocations to Canadian equities are going to be a combination of what our client allocations are and any broader views from a diversification or active risk-taking perspectives that AIMCo is managing. 

We do have a fairly large allocation to Canadian (public) equities as we haven't seen any large shifts, either from client allocations or from our broader active risk-taking environment. Canadian equities do represent over 5% of the total portfolio. 

We don't necessarily set a target allocation based on geography; that's all going to be a function of really risk pricing, coming back to the overarching investment philosophy and that's underpinned by fundamentals and valuation. 

We certainly, we deal with a different type of concentration in the Canadian equity markets, and it has benefited client accounts given the relative pricing of that exposure and the performance over the last couple of years.

I asked if they hedge their US dollar exposure and he replied:

It depends on the product, Leo. We do hedge most of our US dollar exposure at the product level and at the benchmark level, but perhaps we can follow up on something more granular, if you'd like as well. 

Lastly, I noted AIMCo resides in Alberta and there are many geopolitical and trade currents right now in the background, so I asked him how they are reacting, if at all. He responded:

That's a good question. And I probably come back to the overarching philosophy that we're global investors. As we talked before, it really comes down to where we're finding the best opportunities from a risk-pricing perspective that align with our products and our client allocations as a whole. We have approximately 40% Canadian exposure across our broader product mix in general, and certainly to the extent that there are additional opportunities to allocate capital in Canada that are competitive from a risk-return perspective, then our teams are certainly engaged and looking for those opportunities as well.

We left it at that, covered quite a bit for the mid-year results.

Once again, I thank Justin Lord for taking the time to chat with me and I also wanted to thank Alexandra Zabjek for sharing the transcript with me because some of Justin's replies came out muffled on my end.   

Still, great interview, always enjoy catching up with Justin.

Below, AIMCo CIO Justin Lord shares more details on mid-year results  (also see clip here).

Muskan Arora of Markets Group reports Finland’s former pension chief says future cash flows, not markets, capped his risk appetite:

Timo Löyttyniemi, the former chief executive officer spent more than two decades running Finland’s state pension fund, Valtion Eläkerahasto (State Pension Fund of Finland), and in his account, the biggest constraint on his strategy in the final stretch wasn’t markets at all — it was future negative cash flows.

The government will pull an extra €1B out of the €25B fund next year, part of a broader pattern of tapping VER to help cover rising pension costs from an aging population. Löyttyniemi, who retired in February, said the fund ran extensive return simulations in response but left the harder structural decisions to his successor. “These extra outflows to the government made us postpone the plans somewhat during my time. But, of course, it’s now up to the new management to consider what the risk and sufficient and comfortable risk level is.”

“That will be also determined by future returns,” he added.

That caution shows up most clearly in a single number: 20%. That’s roughly where Löyttyniemi held VER’s private markets exposure — private equity, private credit, infrastructure and real estate combined — through nearly his entire tenure, even as other Finnish pension funds pushed allocations north of 40%, some blending in hedge funds to get there. He never reversed the strategy. He simply wouldn’t let it grow once outflows started climbing.

“When there’s uncertainty in terms of the cash flows . . . the size of the private portfolio cannot be increased aggressively,” he said, pointing to a forward return expectation near 5.5%, against outflows already running four to five percentage points a year.

Löyttyniemi is more assertive discussing the one strategic reversal he did make. VER lifted its prohibition on defense investment in spring 2022, rewriting its sustainability framework within weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The policy shift itself was fast; getting the market to believe it was another matter. He says he spent few years afterward correcting consultants, banks and even VER’s own private equity managers who assumed the old restrictions still applied.

“I realized going forward that people still thought that there were some restrictions, and I really wanted everyone to understand,” he said. VER’s direct exposure ran mainly through Nordic — largely Swedish — defense-adjacent equities, layered on indirect exposure through index products that had been quietly compounding the theme all along. Now, he sees huge demand in physical products, such as Information and Communication Technology security and drones.

He’s just as direct in dismissing geopolitics as a filter for developed market decisions. Europe, the Nordics, the U.S. and developed Asia, he said, were never debated internally on political grounds during his tenure — the closest exception came in 2025, when U.S. tax-policy uncertainty pushed VER toward more conservative commitment sizing on U.S.-linked private market products. China is the one market where he pushes back hardest against the geopolitical framing altogether. During his tenure, VER kept its exposure to Chinese equities and fixed income deliberately low throughout his tenure, noting the real driver isn’t politics.

“It seems to boil down to the low profitability of these companies,” he said, pointing to high-volume, low-margin businesses with weak earnings growth.

“So this is more an economical than geopolitical issue but both play a role.”

On manager selection, Löyttyniemi credits VER’s edge to accumulated diligence rather than any single call. Re-upping with an existing manager was, in his words, “an easier decision” than backing a new one, since years of prior scrutiny had already resolved most of the uncertainty a first-time relationship carries. What his team weighed most heavily wasn’t short-term performance but succession — whether younger partners were stepping up as a manager’s founders aged out.

He is similarly unequivocal about Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse in March 2023, which he called an idiosyncratic failure of specific banks rather than a systemic event, though he pointed out that three years later, the fallout has been contained. Still, he cautioned that every crisis has its own features and today’s playbook won’t necessarily transfer cleanly to the next one.  

I don't normally cover Finnish pension plans, but I like this profile article and wanted to bring it to your attention.

Timo Löyttyniemi, the former CEO of Finland’s state pension fund, Valtion Eläkerahasto (VER), shares a lot of wisdom here. He is a finance professional and an academic working at the intersection of business and government.

The biggest takeaway is when you are a mature pension plan -- where retired members considerably outnumber younger active members and outflows outpace inflows by a wide margin -- then you simply cannot take on too much risk in private markets; it's irresponsible. 

His cutoff for an allocation to privates was 20% of total assets, a decision he made with confidence given the maturity of this pension plan. 

The decision had nothing to do with the state of private markets but everything to do with the fact that they can't afford to run short of funds to pay out pensions to retired members. 

He even says it's all about certainty of cash flows, stating this:

“When there’s uncertainty in terms of the cash flows . . . the size of the private portfolio cannot be increased aggressively,” he said, pointing to a forward return expectation near 5.5%, against outflows already running four to five percentage points a year. 

I don't know where he gets his "forward return expectation" for privates at 5.5% (seems low to me)  but if outflows are running at 5% a year, and if he's assumptions are right, then a 20% max allocation for privates sounds about right. 

I also agree with his decision to keep Chinese equities and fixed income deliberately low based on the economic, not political, arguments he puts forth.

Lastly, I agree with VER's private equity approach:

 On manager selection, Löyttyniemi credits VER’s edge to accumulated diligence rather than any single call. Re-upping with an existing manager was, in his words, “an easier decision” than backing a new one, since years of prior scrutiny had already resolved most of the uncertainty a first-time relationship carries. What his team weighed most heavily wasn’t short-term performance but succession — whether younger partners were stepping up as a manager’s founders aged out.

Too many dumb pension funds focus on short-term performance and not enough on succession. And the results are typically disastrous when you chase performance without understanding the underlying team.

Alright, quick comment tonight, still in summer mode.

Below, private markets have stalled since interest rates started to rise in 2022, even as public markets have climbed to new highs. But a period of sustained economic growth along with rising liquidity and AI-driven innovation could help private markets rebound, according to Goldman Sachs' Pete Lyon and Michael Brandmeyer. 

Despite longer private equity holding times and mixed performance from private credit funds, they remain cautiously optimistic, projecting that distributions will gradually return to 15%-20% and that deal activity could exceed its 2021 peak within two to three years.

No big surprise that Goldman sees a sustained recovery in private equity. Hope they're right. 

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) set workplace norms that are still in use almost ninety years later. The FLSA established the 40-hour standard workweek and overtime protections for workers. It guaranteed pay at a rate of 1.5 times the standard hourly wage for work past the 40-hour mark. Overtime protections were designed as a safeguard for workers—to prevent employers from overworking employees and to require firms to pay workers fairly for their labor when they put in extra time on the job. By making long hours more expensive, the overtime premium incentivizes employers to hire more workers and spread the work around.

But as the country’s workforce has shifted over the nearly 90 years since the FLSA was enacted, the FLSA’s overtime rate has not.

Recently, the Double Wage for Overtime Act was introduced by Rep. Casar (D-Texas) in the House and by Sen. Gallego (D-Ariz.) in the Senate. The Act will strengthen overtime protections for more than 13 million workers by amending the overtime rate for the first time since 1938. It would raise overtime pay from 1.5 times a worker’s regular rate of pay to double the regular rate.

How would this affect pay, hours worked, and employment?

The potential to significantly increase workers’ earnings is notable. A worker making $25 an hour and working 10 hours overtime a week for a full year would gain $6,500 more in annual income, all else equal. But, as with any change to overtime policies, employers could respond to the new standard differently, based on the needs of their workplace. In particular, some workers who often work overtime may work fewer overtime hours, as employers adjust schedules and spread work to minimize having to pay the overtime premium. But, due to the double overtime rate, overall compensation for working people will still rise.

The Double Wage for Overtime Act also serves as a mechanism to narrow race and gender pay gaps by boosting pay in historically undercompensated, overtime-eligible sectors, where women and workers of color are disproportionately represented, due to the broad impacts of racism and sexism on labor market outcomes.

Finally, the bill offers a strong deterrent to employers who might otherwise overwork employees. Stronger overtime protections incentivize fairer and more reasonable scheduling, and act as a protection against unpredictably long hours. And, by incentivizing employers to spread hours out to employees who work less than 40 hours a week, stronger overtime protections are also likely to reduce the number of workers who are working part-time “involuntarily” (because they can’t get enough hours).

Any impact on employment is likely to be small, but positive. Some might argue, as they often do in opposing minimum wage increases, that requiring businesses to pay their employees more would reduce employment. But the overwhelming body of evidence on minimum wage increases shows that they raise wages without causing meaningful job losses.

Moreover, increasing the overtime premium differs from increasing the minimum wage in an important way. A higher minimum wage requires employers to raise the pay of all workers earning below the new minimum. By contrast, employers have considerable flexibility in responding to a higher overtime premium. Rather than paying the higher overtime rate, they could hire additional workers or offer more hours to employees who currently work part-time. In part because employers have these alternatives, any employment effect of increasing the overtime premium is likely to be positive.

How does this compare with “No tax on overtime”?

The legislation is far better for working people than Republicans’ “no tax on overtime” policy. Although a tax deduction may sound like a compelling way to help people who work overtime, it is a deeply flawed policy with very uneven benefits. It largely benefits middle-to-high-income earners, provides only modest tax savings for those workers who do qualify, leaves some workers worse off, and preserves financial gains for employers who overwork employees. Strengthening overtime standards—instead of offering gimmicky tax cuts—is the real way to deliver for working people.

How would this affect local economies and businesses?

As mentioned above, if this legislation were to take effect, businesses would have choices and flexibility as to how to comply. Firms may hire additional employees, which would increase employment in the overall economy. They may also choose to innovate and become more efficient in how they direct their employees’ use of time. Reducing excessive numbers of work hours may also improve worker health, concentration, and lead to fewer fatigue-related accidents, which would increase productivity in the workplace, benefiting workers and employers alike.

Though employers can respond to an increase in overtime protections in many ways, the increase will raise labor costs, as it puts money in workers’ pockets. Importantly, this is unlikely to translate into higher prices for consumers. Research on minimum wage increases, which raise labor costs, finds little-to-no inflationary impact from minimum wage increases. And minimum wage increases are a much greater shock to labor costs than an increase in the overtime premium. Increases in the minimum wage affect all hours worked for impacted workers, while the higher overtime rate will only affect hours worked past 40 in a week, a small fraction of total hours worked.

In fact, the Double Wage for Overtime Act will boost affordability by helping ensure that workers actually earn enough in wages to cover the cost of living with dignity and security. The potential income increase for working-class households would have a positive effect on local businesses as well. When workers have more money in their pockets, they can put that money back into their communities.

In short, increasing the overtime wage premium would strengthen one of the nation’s foundational labor standards, putting more money in workers’ pockets while encouraging employers to create jobs, instead of relying on excessive overtime. The Double Wage for Overtime Act is a straightforward opportunity for lawmakers to tackle continued affordability concerns. It is a long overdue modernization of overtime pay that will benefit millions.

James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports pension funds overhaul board of fintech FNZ amid $4.6-billion lawsuit: 

Major shareholders in London-based FNZ Group, including Canadian pension funds, overhauled the board of the financial software provider as they look to stabilize the company’s finances and fend off an ongoing shareholder lawsuit seeking US$4.6-billion.

FNZ provides a digital wealth management platform used by some 650 financial institutions, including North American clients such as Bank of Montreal. Two of Canada’s largest pension funds own significant stakes in the company.

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Montreal-based pension fund that manages $552-billion, is FNZ’s largest shareholder and invested early in the startup in 2018.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), the country’s largest pension fund with $864-billion of assets, invested US$1.1-billion in FNZ in 2022.

Since then, the company, which was founded in 2003 in Wellington, New Zealand has run into significant challenges that include a lawsuit from minority shareholders and rising financial losses that FNZ incurred as it expanded rapidly into Europe, North America and Asia.

The overhauled board with several new directors has a mandate to revamp the company’s business model to bring it “to a more sustainable, more mature level,” Caisse chief executive officer Charles Emond said in a recent interview.

FNZ has a “great product” but also a high “cash burn rate” that needs to be reined in, he said.

Earlier this month, FNZ swapped its board chair, appointing Stephen Welch and citing his experience working with regulated financial services businesses in Britain. Previous chair Gregor Stewart is staying on the board as chair of its risk committee.

Five of the company’s 14 directors were replaced previously, including two board seats controlled by the Caisse. As of July, new appointees include Justin Shaw, an operating partner in the Caisse’s private equity division, and Denis Turcotte, managing partner of Brookfield Asset Management Ltd.

FNZ’s chief financial officer, Aashish Kamat, left the company in July after a year-and-a-half in his role.

The company reported a pre-tax loss of US$1.36-billion in 2025 – roughly double its loss in the previous year – even as revenue rose 9 per cent to US$1.13-billion, according to the company’s most recent filings.

“We brought in a new chair because we think, you know, there’s a lot of challenges in that situation,” Mr. Emond said. “He’s just not a chair there for governance. He’s really an executive chair that has experience as to how to assist us.”

Spokespeople for the Caisse and CPPIB declined to comment on the lawsuit against FNZ as it is before the court. A spokesperson for FNZ could not immediately be reached for comment.

The minority shareholder group that is suing FNZ in a New Zealand court has criticized the company’s leadership and its largest shareholders, alleging that employee morale is at a low ebb, based on internal engagement metrics.

Instead of sticking to prior cost-cutting measures, FNZ raised billions of dollars and then ramped up its spending, only to now “do another U-turn and heavily reduce costs,” FNZ co-founder Mike Stevens, a former employee who is part of the shareholder group suing the company, said in a news release.

“A number of things here simply don’t add up,” he said.

The group alleged in the lawsuit that their ownership stakes were unfairly diluted when the company raised new capital several times, starting in 2024, on terms that gave its largest investors preferential terms.

The Caisse and CPPIB participated in those fundraising rounds, including a US$650-million equity injection that was undertaken after the lawsuit was filed. 

The minority shareholders are seeking US$4.6-billion in restitution. The company is contesting the lawsuit, which it says it without merit.

FNZ recently issued a press release stating it has appointed Stephen Welch as Group Chair:

• Stephen brings decades of experience working with the boards and leadership teams of regulated financial services businesses, with a track record of driving growth, operational improvement and strategic transformation.

FNZ, the leading global wealth management platform, today announced the appointment of Stephen Welch as Group Chair.

Stephen will work closely with the FNZ Board and executive team to support the Group's strategy, transformation agenda and long-term growth ambitions.

Stephen brings decades of experience working with the boards and leadership teams of regulated financial services businesses, with a track record of driving growth, operational improvement and strategic transformation.

Gregor Stewart, who has served as Group Chair since 2024, will remain a member of the Group Board and Chair of its Risk Committee. He will also assume an important new role as Senior Independent Director.

Gregor Stewart, Senior Independent Director, said: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to serve FNZ in a new capacity as it continues on its transformation journey, and to welcome Stephen as new Chair. Stephen brings an impressive track record of success and skills that are highly relevant to FNZ. I look forward to working together.”

Stephen Welch, Group Chair, said: “FNZ has established itself as a global leader in wealth management technology with an exceptional platform and significant opportunities ahead. I look forward to working with the Board, Blythe and her wider leadership team, to support the delivery of the Group's strategy and pursue its long-term growth ambitions.”

Blythe Masters, Group Chief Executive Officer, said: “I am delighted to welcome Stephen as Chair of the FNZ Group Board. Stephen brings significant experience working with the boards and leadership teams of regulated, global financial services businesses. His track record of driving transformation and operational excellence will be highly valuable as FNZ continues to execute its strategy. I look forward to working closely with him.”

“On behalf of the Company, I would like to thank Gregor for his leadership as Chair, and I'm pleased that FNZ will continue to benefit from his experience, insight and counsel in his new role.”

Now, for those of you who don't know her, FNZ's CEO Blythe Masters (featured at the top of the post) is a legend in financial markets, previously heading up JPMorgan's commodities and credit divisions among other very senior responsibilities:

Blythe Masters is Chief Executive Officer of FNZ Group. She is also a Founding Partner and Industry Partner at the fintech specialized private equity and venture capital firm, Motive Partners, where she is also Chair of Motive Ventures. Additionally, she holds the position of Non-Executive Chair at J.P. Morgan Securities, PLC and sits on the board of SymphonyAI.

Prior to joining Motive, Blythe was the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, the leading enterprise blockchain fintech company. Previously, Blythe was a member of the Corporate and Investment Bank Operating Committee and firmwide Executive Committee at J.P. Morgan. Her J.P. Morgan career spanned nearly 30 years, fulfilling several roles including Head of Global Commodities, Head of Corporate and Investment Bank Regulatory Affairs, CFO of the Global Investment Bank, Head of Global Credit Portfolio and Credit Policy and Strategy, and Head of Global Structured Credit.

Blythe is a graduate and Senior Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge where she received a B.A. in Economics.

In short, Blythe Masters was a star at JPMorgan. She rose from intern to head of Global Commodities over the span of nearly three decades. She was widely regarded as one of Wall Street’s most powerful women, and her departure from that bank was high-profile.

The lady has tremendous experience at the most powerful bank in the world and then moved on to be the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, the leading enterprise blockchain fintech company and was also a founding partner of Motive Partners, where she is also Chair of Motive Ventures. 

She's definitely no lightweight but does it mean she can properly run FNZ? 

I don't know. Leading the Commodities and Credit Derivatives divisions at JPMorgan doesn't necessarily make you a great CEO of a wealth platform startup but she's impressive, no doubt about it.

I also don't know what this ongoing shareholder lawsuit seeking US$4.6-billion is all about but when I read "the minority shareholder group that is suing FNZ in a New Zealand court has criticized the company’s leadership and its largest shareholders, alleging that employee morale is at a low ebb," I tend to think that such a lawsuit is frivolous and will ultimately be dismissed in a court of law.

That's my first impression but again, I don't know the details; it just sounds outrageous to me.

Of course employee morale will be low; the company reported a pre-tax loss of US$1.36-billion in 2025 – roughly double its loss in the previous year – and they need to cut costs and shore up operations.

La Caisse and CPP Investments are continuing to participate in fundraising rounds, including a US$650-million equity injection that was undertaken after the lawsuit was filed. 

These are the two largest pension funds in Canada and La Caisse CEO Charles Emond is publicly stating they believe in FNZ's platform and have undertaken board changes to shore up the company operationally.

That's the difference between investing in a public company and investing in a private startup: you have a lot more clout on what is going on at the operational level.

Below, learn more about FNZ's wealth platform.

Also, recorded live at Global Alts 2024 in Miami, Prosek Partners Founder and Managing Partner Jennifer Prosek sits down with Blythe Masters, Founding Partner of Motive Partners, for a candid fireside on a career that helped shape modern finance and a firm rebuilding what specialist private equity looks like in fintech. 

Blythe walks Jennifer through the entire arc: from writing cold-call letters to London banks as a teenager, to photocopying swaps documentation at JPMorgan in 1987, to becoming one of the youngest managing directors in the firm's history, to being credited with turning credit default swaps from a hypothetical instrument into a global market, to running JPMorgan's global commodities business and its regulatory affairs function through the aftermath of the financial crisis. Then in 2014 she left to build Digital Asset, one of the earliest institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure companies, and in 2019 became a founding partner of Motive Partners.

Third, Blythe Masters a Founding Partner of Motive Partners, a $6 billion specialist private equity platform that builds, backs, and buys technology companies that enable the financial services industry. In this conversation with Ted Seides, they cover Blythe’s career trajectory at JP Morgan across asset classes, cycles, and crises and then turn to the investment model at Motive and themes in asset and wealth management. 

They recorded this conversation on the iConnections Global Alts podcast stage, which explains the occasional wind gusts, airplanes overhead, sirens, and children playing in the background (March, 2024). 

Lastly, and most importantly, Blythe Masters, Group CEO of FNZ, discusses leadership, wealth infrastructure, and how AI is transforming advisor productivity in a conversation with Hiten Patel on The Innovators’ Exchange podcast. Watch this interview here (2026).

Davis Giangiulio of CNBC reports Ken Griffin says Citadel unwound more than 80% of risk tied to Situational Awareness portfolio:

Ken Griffin of Citadel in a letter to clients on Friday addressed for the first time the firm’s purchase of assets from Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness hedge fund. 

According to a letter obtained by CNBC’s Sara Eisen, Griffin told clients that Citadel has unwound more than 80% of the aggregate risk from the original portfolio purchased by conducting more than 100 block trades over $4 billion in market value.

Griffin detailed in the letter that Citadel entered discussions with Situational Awareness to acquire some of the fund’s holdings on July 29. One day later, CNBC’s David Faber reported that Situational Awareness was forced to sell all of its public stock positions after facing steep losses. Citadel was later revealed as the buyer of the assets.

“A transaction of this magnitude could not have been completed without the extraordinary cooperation of the trading and prime brokerage teams at the banks serving both firms,” Griffin wrote in the Friday letter to clients. “I am grateful for the focused effort they brought to the rapid transfer of the portfolio.”

Griffin also confirmed the firm’s flagship multistrategy Wellington fund returned 5.94% in July, which CNBC previously reported marked the fund’s best monthly performance since 2022.

Situational Awareness as a hedge fund concentrated positions in the artificial intelligence trade, on a belief by 25-year-old Aschenbrenner that the technology would fundamentally reshape the world and the economy. At the same time, the fund had short positions in some software companies, a sector that investors have worried will be disrupted by AI.

However, the AI trade faltered in June and July — even while broader indexes appeared flat — with stocks that Situational Awareness had large stakes in, like Sandisk and Bloom Energy, tumbling more than 50%. At the same time, software names like Adobe rebounded, meaning the fund was losing money on both its long and short positions.

That set off both margin calls and compulsory sales at the fund.

Since Citadel stepped in to buy the fund’s publicly traded assets, the AI trade has rebounded, with Situational Awareness’ sale representing a bottom for the sell-off that started in June. 

It's that time of the quarter again where we get a sneak peek into the portfolios of the world's most successful money managers, with a customary 45-day lag.

The data was out on Monday, but before I get to it, I led with this article on Citadel profiting off of Situational Awareness's woes, scooping up the portfolio on the cheap and then selling 80% as these stocks rebound.

All this happened in the last few weeks, an amazing story which I chronicled here, and it wasn't just Citadel that profited; other large hedge funds did as well in a coordinated attack where the ruling class of hedge fund kings taught young Leopold Aschenbrenner a lesson he will never forget.\

Citadel made a killing here. Its flagship multistrategy Wellington fund returned 5.94% in July, the fund’s best monthly performance since 2022. And keep in mind, they manage risk extremely tightly and handled the Situational Awareness portfolio perfectly, buying it at the right time and selling it when positions fully recovered. 

How did it do this? Just look at shares of Sandisk, hit a low of $998 on July 29th and recently popped just shy of $1,827 on August 17th when Citadel probably sold a good chunk at a big profit (they bought at a discount so less than $998 a share).

And if you look at the major institutional holders of Sandisk here, you will see the regular large investors but dig a little deeper, and you'll see top hedge funds owned it as well (remember, this data is as of the end of last quarter). 

Importantly, there was huge money to be made just trading this stock, and top hedge funds pounded on the opportunity (next quarterly filing will prove this). 

What else happened this week? Former macro hedge fund manager turned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent engaged in yield curve control, trying to bring down rates on the long end. So far his efforts have not worked, but he has a huge toolkit to work with. 

I don't know, I agree with JPMorgan’s James Sullivan, the Treasury buybacks may offer temporary relief but risk merely shifting the debt problem down the road, and it's not bullish for the greenback.

Surging government and corporate debt supply, alongside waning foreign demand, could keep upward pressure on yields.  

Of course, I have a solution for all this: slap on a 2% sales tax in the US and pay off some debt!! 

Back to stocks. The Dow surges 500 points on Friday, but the index posted back-to-back weekly losses:

The S&P 500 rose on Friday as investors tried to find their footing following a steep sell-off driven by rising Treasury yields.

The broad market index climbed 0.43% to end at 7,674.37, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.43% to 26,180.45. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 517.80 points, or 0.98%, supported by gains in healthcare stocks such as Merck and Johnson & Johnson. The 30-stock index closed at 53,277.01.

The financials sector offered a boost to the broader market, with crypto-related stocks seeing sizable gains as bitcoin posted a weekly advance of 22%. Robinhood shares jumped almost 14%, while Coinbase added 8%. Materials also outperformed, up 2% on the day.

Wall Street is coming off a losing session, as Treasury yields resumed their march higher after the government’s efforts to stymie a sell-off in the Treasury market. Bonds, particularly on the long end of the curve, have been under pressure as investors fear rising inflation due to higher oil prices.

Thursday’s pullback ultimately led the S&P 500 to tumble 1.4% on the week, while the Nasdaq lost 2% in the period. Both indexes snapped three-week winning streaks. The Dow slid 0.9% for back-to-back weekly losses.

The downturn this week also affected stocks beyond the U.S., with the MSCI All Country World Index posting a weekly decline of almost 1%.

In the wake of the latest market drawdown, Leo Kelly, founder and CEO of Verdence Capital Advisors, thinks equities could see even more losses — particularly, a slide toward correction territory in the fall — if Treasury yields continue to rise and tensions in the Middle East persist.

On Friday, longer-dated yields continued their ascent, with the 10-year Treasury note yield gaining more than 3 basis points to 4.734%. The 30-year Treasury bond yield advanced more than 3 basis points as well to 5.273%.

“The market has adjusted to 4% to 5%” on the 10-year yield, Kelly said. “If we had some sort of event and the market broke out and went to the 6% to 7% range on the 10-year, that’s a problem, and the market will react poorly to that.”

With yields higher, investors will be turning to next week’s speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium for more clarity on that front, as well as other areas such as central bank independence. 

For the week, here are the top-performing US large-cap and mid-cap stocks (see full list here and here):

 

 

I circled some of the symbols I tracked closely this week. For example: 

• Moderna shares (MRNA) surged 129% this week on promising results of its cancer vaccine for melanoma. Among its top holders Fidelity, BackRock, Vanguard, Baillie Gifford and  Two Sigma.
• Shares of Amylyx Pharmaceuticals (AMLX) surged 79% this week after after its treatment candidate for post-bariatric hypoglycemia (PBH) reported strong results in phase 3 clinical studies. Among its top holders, you have Fidelity, BlackRock, Perceptive Advisors and Vanguard.

I'm just showing you two examples here but you really need to do a lot of work to understand who bought which stocks and who did well and why. 

Importantly, things move in real time, not lagged time, but you can still learn a lot by paying attention to where top funds are focusing their attention and add that information to your toolkit.

What else? If you look at the top performing stocks year-to-date (full list here), you'll see a lot of stocks up 300% or more, which shows you trends tend to persist in this market:

I circled a few, including 10x Genomics (TXG), which Stanley Druckenmiller's Duquesne family office owns (and made a killing off of, see his positions here).

Again, I don't expect people to look at all the top funds' holdings below and if you don't understand how to technically analyze daily or weekly charts or if you don't understand biotech stocks, forget about it.

I'm providing you a toolkit, your analysts need to dig hard here to figure out opportunities and then discuss with portfolio managers who need to trade these stocks and figure out the right setup.

Is there alpha here? You bet there is but you need to know how to find it and take the appropriate risks.

Ok, let me wrap this up, time to enjoy my weekend. 

The links below take you straight to the top holdings of top money managers and then click to see where they increased and decreased their holdings.

Top multi-strategy, event-driven hedge funds and large hedge fund managers

As the name implies, these hedge funds invest across a wide variety of hedge fund strategies like L/S Equity, L/S credit, global macro, convertible arbitrage, risk arbitrage, volatility arbitrage, merger arbitrage, distressed debt and statistical pair trading. Below are links to the holdings of some top multi-strategy hedge funds I track closely:

1) Appaloosa LP (David Tepper)

2) Citadel Advisors (Ken Griffin)

3) Balyasny Asset Management

4) Point72 Asset Management (Steve Cohen)

5) Millennium Management (Izzy Englander)

6) Farallon Capital Management

7) Shonfeld Strategic Partners 

8) Walleye Capital 

9) Verition Fund Management 

10) Peak6 Investments

11) Kingdon Capital Management

12) HBK Investments

13) Highbridge Capital Management

14) Highland Capital Management

15) Hudson Bay Capital Management

16) Pentwater Capital Management

17) Sculptor Capital Management (formerly known as Och-Ziff Capital Management)

18) ExodusPoint Capital Management

19) Carlson Capital Management

20) Magnetar Capital

21) Whitebox Advisors

22) QVT Financial 

23) Paloma Partners

24) Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisors

25) York Capital Management

Top Global Macro Hedge Funds and Family Offices

These hedge funds gained notoriety because of George Soros, arguably the best and most famous hedge fund manager. Global macros typically invest across fixed income, currency, commodity and equity markets.

George Soros, Carl Icahn, Stanley Druckenmiller, Julian Robertson  have converted their hedge funds into family offices to manage their own money.

1) Soros Fund Management

2) Icahn Associates

3) Duquesne Family Office (Stanley Druckenmiller)

4) Bridgewater Associates

5) Pointstate Capital Partners 

6) Caxton Associates (Bruce Kovner)

7) Tudor Investment Corporation (Paul Tudor Jones)

8) Discovery Capital Management (Rob Citrone)

9) Moore Capital Management

10) Rokos Capital Management

11) Element Capital

12) Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust (Michael Larson, the man behind Gates)

Top Quant and Market Neutral Hedge Funds

These funds use sophisticated mathematical algorithms to make their returns, typically using high-frequency models so they churn their portfolios often. A few of them have outstanding long-term track records and many believe quants are taking over the world. They typically only hire PhDs in mathematics, physics and computer science to develop their algorithms. Market neutral funds will engage in pair trading to remove market beta. Some are large asset managers that specialize in factor investing.

1) Alyeska Investment Group

2) Renaissance Technologies

3) DE Shaw & Co.

4) Two Sigma Investments

5) Cubist Systematic Strategies (a quant division of Point72)

6) Man Group

7) Analytic Investors

8) AQR Capital Management

9) Dimensional Fund Advisors

10) Quantitative Investment Management

11) Oxford Asset Management

12) PDT Partners

13) TPG Angelo Gordon

14) Quantitative Systematic Strategies

15) Quantitative Investment Management

16) Bayesian Capital Management

17) SABA Capital Management

18) Quadrature Capital

19) Simplex Trading

Top Deep Value, Activist, Growth at a Reasonable Price, Event Driven and Distressed Debt Funds

These are among the top long-only funds that everyone tracks. They include funds run by legendary investors like Warren Buffet, Seth Klarman, Ron Baron and Ken Fisher. Activist investors like to make investments in companies where management lacks the proper incentives to maximize shareholder value. They differ from traditional L/S hedge funds by having a more concentrated portfolio. Distressed debt funds typically invest in debt of a company but sometimes take equity positions.

1) Abrams Capital Management (the one-man wealth machine)

2) Berkshire Hathaway

3) TCI Fund Management

4) Baron Partners Fund (click here to view other Baron funds)

5) BHR Capital

6) Fisher Asset Management

7) Baupost Group

8) Fairfax Financial Holdings

9) Fairholme Capital

10) Gotham Asset Management

11) Fir Tree Partners

12) Elliott Investment Management (Paul Singer)

13) Jana Partners

14) Miller Value Partners (Bill Miller)

15) Highfields Capital Management

16) Eminence Capital

17) Pershing Square Capital Management

18) New Mountain Vantage  Advisers

19) Atlantic Investment Management

20) Polaris Capital Management

21) Third Point

22) Marcato Capital Management

23) Glenview Capital Management

24) Apollo Management

25) Avenue Capital

26) Armistice Capital

27) Blue Harbor Group

28) Brigade Capital Management

29) Caspian Capital

30) Kerrisdale Advisers

31) Knighthead Capital Management

32) Relational Investors

33) Roystone Capital Management

34) Scopia Capital Management

35) Schneider Capital Management

36) ValueAct Capital

37) Vulcan Value Partners

38) Okumus Fund Management

39) Eagle Capital Management

40) Sasco Capital

41) Lyrical Asset Management

42) Gabelli Funds

43) Brave Warrior Advisors

44) Matrix Asset Advisors

45) Jet Capital

46) Conatus Capital Management

47) Starboard Value

48) Pzena Investment Management

49) Trian Fund Management

50) Oaktree Capital Management

51) Fayez Sarofim & Co 

52) Southeastern Asset Management 

Top Long/Short Hedge Funds

These hedge funds go long shares they think will rise in value and short those they think will fall. Along with global macro funds, they command the bulk of hedge fund assets. There are many L/S funds but here is a small sample of some well-known funds.

1) Adage Capital Management

2) Viking Global Investors

3) Greenlight Capital

4) Maverick Capital

5) Pointstate Capital Partners 

6) Marathon Asset Management

7) Tiger Global Management (Chase Coleman)

8) Coatue Management

9) D1 Capital Partners

10) Artis Capital Management

11) Fox Point Capital Management

12) Jabre Capital Partners

13) Lone Pine Capital

14) Paulson & Co.

15) Bronson Point Management

16) Hoplite Capital Management

17) LSV Asset Management

18) Hussman Strategic Advisors

19) Cantillon Capital Management

20) Brookside Capital Management

21) Blue Ridge Capital

22) Iridian Asset Management

23) Clough Capital Partners

24) GLG Partners LP

25) Cadence Capital Management

26) Honeycomb Asset Management

27) New Mountain Vantage

28) Penserra Capital Management

29) Eminence Capital

30) Steadfast Capital Management

31) Brookside Capital Management

32) PAR Capital Capital Management

33) Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co

34) Brahman Capital

35) Bridger Management 

36) Kensico Capital Management

37) Situational Awareness LP

38) Soroban Capital Partners

39) Passport Capital

40) Pennant Capital Management

41) Mason Capital Management

42) Tide Point Capital Management

43) Sirios Capital Management 

44) Hayman Capital Management

45) Highside Capital Management

46) Tremblant Capital Group

47) Decade Capital Management

48) Suvretta Capital Management

49) Bloom Tree Partners

50) Cadian Capital Management

51) Matrix Capital Management

52) Senvest Partners

53) Falcon Edge Capital Management

54) Park West Asset Management

55) Melvin Capital Partners (Plotkin shut down Melvin after reeling rom Redditor attack)

56) Owl Creek Asset Management

57) Portolan Capital Management

58) Proxima Capital Management

59) Tourbillon Capital Partners

60) Impala Asset Management

61) Valinor Management

62) Marshall Wace

63) Light Street Capital Management

64) Rock Springs Capital Management

65) Rubric Capital Management

66) Whale Rock Capital

67) Skye Global Management

68) York Capital Management

69) Zweig-Dimenna Associates

Top Sector and Specialized Funds

I like tracking activity funds that specialize in real estate, biotech, healthcare, retail and other sectors like mid, small and micro caps. Here are some funds worth tracking closely.

1) Avoro Capital Advisors (formerly Venbio Select Advisors)

2) Baker Brothers Advisors

3) Perceptive Advisors

4) RTW Investments

5) Healthcor Management

6) Orbimed Advisors

7) Deerfield Management

8) BB Biotech AG

9) Birchview Capital

10) Ghost Tree Capital

11) Soleus Capital Management

12) Oracle Investment Management

13) Palo Alto Investors

14) Consonance Capital Management

15) Camber Capital Management

16) Redmile Group

17) Casdin Capital

18) Bridger Capital Management

19) Boxer Capital

20) Omega Fund Management

21) Bridgeway Capital Management

22) Cohen & Steers

23) Cardinal Capital Management

24) Munder Capital Management

25) Diamondhill Capital Management 

26) Cortina Asset Management

27) Geneva Capital Management

28) Criterion Capital Management

29) Daruma Capital Management

30) 12 West Capital Management

31) RA Capital Management

32) Sarissa Capital Management

33) Rock Springs Capital Management

34) Senzar Asset Management

35) Paradigm Biocapital Advisors

36) Sphera Funds

37) Tang Capital Management

38) Thomson Horstmann & Bryant

39) Ecor1 Capital

40) Opaleye Management

41) NEA Management Company

42) Sofinnova Investments 

43) Great Point Partners

44) Tekla Capital Management

45) Van Berkom and Associates

Mutual Funds and Asset Managers

Mutual funds and large asset managers are not hedge funds but their sheer size makes them important players. Some asset managers have excellent track records. Below, are a few funds investors track closely.

1) Fidelity

2) BlackRock Inc

3) Wellington Management

4) AQR Capital Management

5) Sands Capital Management

6) Brookfield Asset Management

7) Dodge & Cox

8) Eaton Vance Management

9) Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co.

10) Geode Capital Management

11) Goldman Sachs Group

12) JP Morgan Chase & Co.

13) Morgan Stanley

14) Manulife Asset Management

15) UBS Asset Management

16) Barclays Global Investor

17) Epoch Investment Partners

18) Thornburg Investment Management

19) Kornitzer Capital Management

20) Batterymarch Financial Management

21) Tocqueville Asset Management

22) Neuberger Berman

23) Winslow Capital Management

24) Herndon Capital Management

25) Artisan Partners

26) Great West Life Insurance Management

27) Lazard Asset Management 

28) Janus Capital Management

29) Franklin Resources

30) Capital Research Global Investors

31) T. Rowe Price

32) First Eagle Investment Management

33) Frontier Capital Management

34) Akre Capital Management

35) Brandywine Global

36) Brown Capital Management

37) Victory Capital Management

38) Orbis Allan Gray

39) Ariel Investments 

40) ARK Investment Management

Canadian Asset Managers

Here are a few Canadian funds I track closely:

1) Addenda Capital

2) Letko, Brosseau and Associates

3) Fiera Capital Corporation

4) West Face Capital

5) Hexavest

6) 1832 Asset Management

7) Jarislowsky, Fraser

8) Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management

9) TD Asset Management

10) CIBC Asset Management

11) Beutel, Goodman & Co

12) Greystone Managed Investments

13) Mackenzie Financial Corporation

14) Great West Life Assurance Co

15) Guardian Capital

16) Scotia Capital

17) AGF Investments

18) Montrusco Bolton

19) CI Investments

20) Venator Capital Management

21) Van Berkom and Associates

22) Formula Growth

23) Hillsdale Investment Management

Pension Funds, Endowment Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Fed's Swiss Surrogate

Last but not least, I the track activity of some pension funds, endowment, sovereign wealth funds and the Swiss National Bank (aka the Fed's Swiss surrogate). Below, a sample of the funds I track closely:

1) Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMco)

2) Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

3) Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

4) Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec

5) OMERS Administration Corp.

6) Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP)

7) British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI)

8) Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments)

9) PGGM Investments

10) APG All Pensions Group

11) California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)

12) California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS)

13) New York State Common Fund

14) New York State Teachers Retirement System

15) State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System

16) State of Wisconsin Investment Board

17) State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund

18) Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio

19) STRS Ohio

20) Teacher Retirement System of Texas

21) Virginia Retirement Systems

22) TIAA CREF investment Management

23) Harvard Management Co.

24) Norges Bank

25) Nordea Investment Management

26) Korea Investment Corp.

27) Singapore Temasek Holdings 

28) Yale Endowment Fund

29) Swiss National Bank (aka, the Fed's Swiss surrogate)

Below, Ken Griffin's Citadel has offloaded more than 80% of the aggregate risk associated with the Situational Awareness stock portfolio it acquired from the embattled AI hedge fund. Citadel struck a deal last month to buy stocks from the fund led by Leopold Aschenbrenner. Bloomberg's Hema Parmar reports.

Also, the CNBC Investment Committee debates whether we are in Wall Street's most exciting era as BlackRock's Rick Rieder says we are (from Thursday's HalfTime report).

Third, Tom Lee, Fundstrat managing partner and head of research, and Bryn Talkington, Requisite Capital Management managing partner, join 'Closing Bell' to recap the day's market moves.

Lastly, Bill Dudley, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and former New York Fed President, explains why he thinks US the equity market is in bubble territory. Speaking with Romaine Bostick on "Bloomberg The Close," Dudley also comments on the economic impact of AI and the rise in bond yields.