20151230_Melissa Ko

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-10-17/covepoint-s-ko-reaps-22-gain-on-emerging-currencies-converging-to-g-10


 “When other people panic, then you see it as an opportunity, and when other people are too complacent, you should start to question,” 

“We tend to be contrarian -- certainly not for the sake of being contrarian -- but we do question the prevailing themes to see if they really make sense"

“You have to have your mind on the fundamentals, but at the same time you also have to have a sense of what is the dominant narrative at any given moment,” 

 “The point of maximum opportunity is when that changes.”

“Our tendency to question the consensus -- it’s more art than science,”

Brazil Bet

The Covepoint fund surged almost 63 percent in 2009 after Ko and her team bet correctly on Brazil. In late 2008, they wagered that Brazil’s central bank would break with tradition and lower, not raise, interest rates in response to the global financial upheaval.

“In many of their crises before, the response was always to hike rates massively, trying to stem capital flight,” Ko says. Since the crisis didn’t originate in Brazil, Ko and her team figured the bank would act differently, she says.

The bet paid off when Brazilian central bankers cut the benchmark Selic rate five times from 13.75 percent over the course of 2009 to a low of 8.75 percent.

“Our trade didn’t start to make a lot of money right away; it wasn’t the consensus for a long time,” she says. “We had to wait for it to pan out.” The real strengthened 33 percent against the U.S. dollar in 2009, trading at 1.7445 at year-end

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그 뒤 2011 기사

Ko's Covepoint Fund Fell 38% in September on Currency Bets

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-05/investors-lose-money-purchasing-bailout-fund-bonds-from-efsf-euro-credit

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그 뒤 Famillly office 로 바꾸고..

2015말 기사

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-bold-few-traders-earn-billions-flouting-rivals-1451348703

One of the few outsize currency wins belongs to a South Korea-born manager who said she produced a more-than-120% return with bets against the euro, as well as the Australian dollar and Brazilian real as the commodities rout took hold.

Melissa Ko, 48, spoke no English when she moved to the U.S. in her teens. She started her own hedge fund after rising through the ranks at securities firm Bear Stearns & Co. Inc., and continued to invest her own money upon closing the fund two years ago.

This year her gains amounted to $60 million, she said, pushing her personal fortune above $100 million. She used leverage, or borrowed money, of up to eight times to boost returns.

Heading into 2016 she is adding a bearish wager against the Japanese yen and joining peers on a renewed bet against Europe as policy makers’ powers on the continent wane. She said she thinks the euro will fall below parity against the U.S. dollar in the coming year.

“People have become disappointed and soured on the trade,” she said of the of-late reversal for the euro. “But I think it’s just a little blip.”