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Democratic Hedge Fund Billionaire Loses Millions in Market Slide

President and founder of Greenlight Capital David Einhorn / AP
September 1, 2015

The hedge fund run by billionaire Democratic donor David Einhorn continues to get crushed this summer and is now down 14 percent for the year.

Einhorn's Greenlight Capital, worth more than $10 billion, is faring far worse than other hedge funds and went down another 5.4 percent in August, according to the New York Times.

The fund was down 5.3 percent in August and down 14 percent for the year, according to people briefed on the matter.

Going into August, Greenlight had been down 9 percent, performing much worse than the average hedge fund, which as of the end of July was up 2.5 percent for the year, according to the research firm HFR.

August was actually an improvement. In July, the fund was down 6.3 percent.

"We’re disappointed about the recent results," read a brief note put out by the firm on Monday.

The losses come amid continued political giving for Einhorn, who has made more than $250,000 worth of political donations to Democratic candidates and groups over the years.

In 2014, groups such as ActBlue received more than $10,000 from Einhorn. Though Einhorn lives in New York, he also contributed $9,900 to the Democratic Party of Virginia.

Noted by Forbes as a reason for Greenlight's failures is Einhorn's cold streak when it comes to picking stocks. His big bets on both Consol Energy and SunEdison are both currently hurting him. He also notoriously bet against Keurig, which has been very successful in recent years.

Adding insult to financial injury is the current success of the New York Mets, a team that Einhorn failed to purchase in 2011 even when the $200 million sale was believed to be a done deal.

Published under: Democratic Donors