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Comment by smachiz | Hacker News Reader

>One recent development at SoftBank that worries some in Elliott is a new asset-management arm Mr. Son announced in mid-August as cash piled up, to which he will contribute himself. He now personally directs a team of traders using $20 billion of the cash pile to bet on daily moves in tech names including Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc., said people familiar with his trading.

It's ~$20B, though they had market exposure of over ~$50B.

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I'm from outside the industry, but this seems outright bonkers to me, like completely unprofessional. Mega fund managers using $20B like a Robin Hood account for day trades?

Unless he literally has quasi inside information, this seems wrong.

I sort of wonder how much of this is embellished. Most of the time risk management products will try to stop this.

I'd have to think the internal risk team at SoftBank is not going to do anything but 'warn' the partners. If the parnters believe in their own koolaid ... (hey, we are 'world class investors, look how much money we raised') it's an easy trap for them to fall into.

Paradoxically - even just being a 'true series D/E fund before IPO' is a really great concept, they should stick to it. WeWork, Uber etc are actually good investments if managed properly. If they reigned in Adam at WW it might have worked out better.

Softbank has gone from 0 to $20Bn day trading in 6 months. I doubt their riks management is up to scratch to be honest. It's one thing to be evaluating single large long-term investments with seats on the board etc. It's quite another to be day trading options.

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