An upstart hedge fund achieved a whopping 163% return last year by betting Fed rate hikes would cause economic chaos, according to a report Wednesday.
Investment manager Neal Berger’s Contrarian Macro Fund, which controls about $200 million in assets, placed bearish bets on stocks and bonds that grew bloated by overzealous investments during a period of lax fiscal policy, according to Bloomberg.
Berger launched the venture — which operates under the umbrella of his larger firm, Eagle’s View Capital Management — in April 2021 based on a hunch that the Federal Reserve would take a hawkish turn with interest rate hikes after years of lenient policy.
“The reason why I started the fund was that central bank flows were going to change 180 degrees. That key difference would be a headwind on all asset prices,” Berger told Bloomberg. “One had to believe that the prices we saw were, to use the…