United States

The name of Russell Clark and his Horseman Global hedge fund are well-known to regular readers: Clark is perhaps best known not only for having run a net short book since early 2012...

... but for being consistently profitable and successful during this period, a time when most of his "pedigree" peers have been underperforming the market and losing money hand over fist.

In fact, based on its size, one can probably argue that Horseman Global is the most successful hedge fund of 2016, if not of the entire decade.

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

Even as Pentagon officials have sought to emphasize their claims of ISIS being “on the run,” ever more US ground troops are being deployed into Iraq to try to cope with ISIS offensives, with the battle of Makhmur leading to the introduction of US Marines in front-line combat roles.

After posting the smallest possible rebound in the past week, moments ago Baker Hughes reported that in the holiday shortened week (in which there was some extrapolation) the decline in US oil rigs has resumed, and as of this moment there were only 372 oil rigs operating in the US, down 15 weekly and the biggest drop in the past moth, to the lowest number in recent history.

Authored by James Montier & Philip Pilkington via GMO,

Executive Summary

Some time in the second week of February, when the market was tumbling on, among other things, fears of a U.S. recession, the Atlanta Fed was scrambling to give the all clear signal on the US economy when it surprised watchers by releasing a far stronger than consensus Q1 GDP nowcast of 2.7%.