An ex-JPMorgan analyst has reportedly set up a mysterious hedge fund in Taiwan that has so far recorded massive return rates.
Former JPM Asset Management analyst Andre Liu has quietly created a proprietary trading firm powerhouse in Taipei that has far outshone the rest of the industry, reports Bloomberg.
According to the firm’s internal documents seen by Bloomberg, UC Capital has recorded an internal rate of return of 51% since it was launched in 2021.
A report from research and insights firm PivotalPath found that in 2024, hedge funds scored an average return of 10.7%.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that hedge fund giant Citadel’s flagship Wellington fund saw a 15.1% return that year while Millennium Management saw 15%. Bridgewater Associates, which is widely regarded as the largest hedge fund in the world, posted 11% in gains for its flagship Pure Alpha 18% volatility fund.
Bloomberg’s data also shows that UC Capital has routinely beaten the local market in Taiwan (TAIEX), even recording significant gains in 2022 despite the Taiwan stock market index ending the year in the negative.
UC Capital turned heads in Q4 of last year when it successfully purchased the ball that baseball star Shohei Ohtani hit his 50th home run on the same season he also stole 50 bases – a legendary feat in the MLB.
According to Bloomberg, Liu started UC with a colleague in 2013, and by 2021, the firm’s assets exploded 27,000% before the trader decided to start his own company.
Says Liu,
“Ever since I was a kid, I believed that the heart of trading lies in the changes in moods and sentiment.”
Consequently, UC’s engineers have built a model to measure public discourse by scraping and analyzing social media, online forums, news articles and comment sections, in what the firm describes as “sentiment thermometers” to track certain trending topics and behavior.
Leveraging its sentiment-driven approach, UC capitalized on a decline in TSMC’s share price earlier this year after its models detected a surge in public discourse involving President Trump and the company’s future. At the time, the chipmaker announced a $100 billion investment in its US plants.
UC also reportedly bought an earthquake detector on the eastern coast of Taiwan so that the firm would know about earthquakes before anyone else could in order to short markets in case of uncertainty.
The trading firm currently has about $497 million in liquid assets before leverage.
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