The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 10 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Ackman: Pershing Square Lost $400 Million Exiting Netflix Position
“So we took about a billion dollar position in Netflix after the stock fell about 50%. And then, you know, we're a long term investor, but we learned information within a few months of the initial investment, i.e. The next quarter's results at Colt, caused us t…”
Ackman: Pershing Square has never gone long or short regional banks
“We have never been short regional banks. We've never been long regional banks.”
Ackman: Timidity in position sizing held back Pershing Square's results
“It was less than, it was about a point and a half of our, a little under two percent of our capital, but could it have been three percent? Could have been four percent for sure. And so when I look back at something like that, I would have been willing to lose …”
Ackman: Pershing Square made $2.8B hedging interest rates but was "timid"
“We should have made ten billion dollars on, on hedging interest rate risk. Instead we made 2.8 billion because we were a little timid.”
Ackman: Pershing Square holds fund cash in U.S. Treasuries to avoid bank risk
“Other than cash we need for daily needs, we keep that number pretty small everything else is in a U.S. Treasury money market account, or we own U.S. Treasury bills directly. So we're not taking bank risks, we're just facing the U.S. Sovereign. And then the cas…”
Ackman: Pershing Square bought interest rate options striking above 93 bps
“We bought, in effect, the way to think about it is we bought a call option. That paid off when two-year interest rates went above 93 basis points, and we had about an eighteen-month term. And at the time we bought that instrument, two-year rates were at 12 bas…”
Ackman: Pershing Square Invests Exclusively in Liquid Large-Cap Public Companies
“We built Pershing Square to invest only in, you know, liquid large cap public companies and it's served us really well.”
Ackman: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are Pershing Square's only financial holdings
“The only financial institutions we own are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which we've owned for years, which are kind of, if you will, options on a potential restructuring of those institutions years from now.”