October 2016 Results

October was a very challenging month as Tronc (Ticker: TRNC, one of my special situation plays blew up. Gannett (Ticker: GCI walked away from a deal to acquire Tronc as the banks pulled their financing. This contributed to the majority of my loss in October. You try your best to avoid these blow ups, but they a bound to happen in the special situation / merger arb game. You simply have to not dwell on it too much and move on.

My current largest merger arb play is Virgin America (Ticker: VA and I am anticipating that the DOJ will hopefully approve this merger with Alaska Air (Ticker: ALK this month. I also have a small position in NXP Semiconductors (Ticker: NXPI, which has agreed to be acquired by Qualcomm (Ticker: QCOM for $110 in cash. That’s it for my current merger arb plays. I’m still keeping a close eye on LinkedIn (Ticker: LNKD and may initiate a position soon.    

Hopefully, I’ll redeem myself from the minor setback in October…

2016 Performance Year to Date = +18% with the running monthly returns as follows:

January -5.47%
February -3.50%
March +7.51%
April +0.84%
May +6.34%
June -2.6%
July +12.2%
August +6.57%
September +1.94%

October -5.49%