Skip to main content

Fidelity dumps Petrochina holdings

Reuters and FT.com are reporting that Fidelity Investments has cut its holdings in the US-listed ADRs of PetroChina.

Summary from Reuters:

Fidelity Investments, the world's No.1 mutual fund company, has cut its exposure to PetroChina Co. Ltd. (0857.HK: Quote, Profile , Research) following pressure by human rights groups over the Chinese oil firm's links to Sudan.

In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, Fidelity said it had cut its holding of PetroChina (PTR.N: Quote, Profile , Research) American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) by 91 percent in the first quarter of 2007.

Apparently, Fidelity has decided to give in to the pressure from various human rights groups who are worried about PetroChina's business operations in Sudan and feel that China's influence is obscuring the issue of genocide in that country.

Similar pressure tactics and criticisms have been aimed at Berkshire Hathaway and its highly visible chairman, Warren Buffett, for the company's investment stake in PetroChina. Buffett recently brushed off calls for Berkshire to divest its stake in the company, saying that the company had no issues with PetroChina's operations in Sudan and that the actions of Chinese government was a separate issue that neither he nor Berkshire could control.

Berkshire shareholders voted down the proposal to divest at the company's annual meeting.

As for PetroChina's share price, it's plain to see the drop in early 2007 that would have coincided with Fidelity selling off most of its stake in the company. Would Berkshire have taken the opportunity to buy more during this time frame?

Update: Latest 13F filings reveal no change in the size of Berkshire's PetroChina holdings from quarter ending March 31, 2007 over the previous quarter. We understand that this info may not give the whole picture, as Buffett/Berkshire are known to argue for delays in sending info regarding investments holdings in an attempt to prevent investor copycatting.

More opinion on the morality surrounding shareholder divestments and PetroChina from fund manager Cody Willard. See also, Bloomberg columnist, William Pesek's contrary stance.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Scott Ramsey

Today we continue our series, "Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards" , with a look at Jack Schwager's interview with Scott Ramsey of Denali Asset Management.  Ramsey, a futures trader and CTA who works on the island of St. Croix, spoke to Schwager about his first foray into the markets, his evolution as a trader, and the process he stands by to protect and grow his clients' money. 1) . Ramsey started trading in college. He was roped into the OTC metals market via a broker's ad in the Wall St. Journal. The broker charged customers a flat fee to buy and sell as much as they wanted in a particular market for six month. At the time, Scott was a novice and didn't know about futures, so he traded metals in this fashion through the inflationary run-up of the late 1970s. 2) . Scott had to rethink his trading strategy after he bought silver at $50 an oz., only to watch it collapse to $26 following a long string of limit-down days. He sold as soon as the market...
Read more

How to "Pull the Trigger" on Your Trading Ideas

In our last post, I quoted hedge fund manager, Jim Leitner on the importance of following up on your investment ideas.  Today I'd like to follow up and share some thoughts on how you can learn to consistently "pull the trigger" on your best trading setups and investing ideas. In order to help you do that, we'll take from the best and offer up key insights from interviews with top traders and trading psychologists like Alan Farley, Brett Steenbarger, and Doug Hirschhorn .  Now before we get to their key insights on overcoming trading anxiety and pulling the trigger on your trading ideas, let's remember what Jim Leitner said in his interview: "Learn to love to listen to people and when you hear something interesting, follow up on it. Don't just think, "Well that's an interesting idea" only to find out a year later that the company you could've bought shares in is now up 500-fold. You never want to say woulda, coulda, shoulda...
Read more

Moneyball: How the Red Sox Win Championships

Welcome, readers . T o get the first look at brand new posts (like the following piece) and to receive our exclusive email list updates, please subscribe to the Finance Trends Newsletter .   The Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series title of t he 21st century this we ek. Having won their first Se ries in 86 years back in 200 4, the last decade-plus has marked a very strong return to form for one of baseball's oldest big league clubs. So how did they do it? Quick background: in late 2002, team own er and hedge fund manager, John W. Henry (with his partners ) bought the Boston Red Sox and its historic Fenway Park for a reported sum of $ 695 million. Henry and Co. quickly set out to find their ideal General Manager (GM) to help turn around their newly acquired, ailing ship. This brings us to one of my fav orite scenes from the 2011 film , Moneyball , in which John W. Henry (played by Ar liss Howard) attempts to woo Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pi...
Read more