Michelle Celarier
Verified- Writer, Freelance
- Writer at Large, Institutional Investor
- Writer, Michelle Celarier on The Billionaire Class
New York
Award-winning journalist now also on Substack: michellecelarier.substack.com Also in @iimag, @NYmag, @nytimes, @theinformation, @FortuneMagazine etc
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Articles by Michelle Celarier
What’s Behind the Latest Surge in Grain and Oilseed Prices?
The boom in continuation funds, which now make up as much as 20 percent of private equity fund exits, has drawn scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is examining potential conflicts of interest, valuations, and disclosure issues. The SEC, whose rule governing private fund advisors was struck down by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024, is nonetheless looking at some of the issues that rule was meant to address, said Paul Foley, an attorney with Baker Donelson.
Why Wall Street’s Big, Bad Bears Aren’t Ready to Bet Against AI Yet
Steve Eisman, former hedge fund manager and short seller, has become one of the more prominent critics of the AI phenomenon that is sweeping the markets and, according to some, endangering the world. Yet Eisman, who initially shot to fame for his trades in the 2008 financial crisis and his subsequent portrayal in Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short,” is hesitant to commit capital to his AI criticism. “I am not ready to make a big short call here,” he told me.
Chris Hohn’s TCI Tops Hedge Fund Gains in 2025
After leaving his position as president of John W. Henry & Co. in 1993, Ken Tropin found himself contemplating his next steps. He met up with Mark Dalton, who at the time was the president of Tudor Investment Corp.
From Equitizing Cash to Core Holdings: How Asset Owners are Rethinking ETFs
Muddy Waters’ Carson Block calls it the “Left Disclosure,” his name for the legal disclosure the firm puts prominently on its short reports: it aims to begin covering most, or even all, of its position as soon as a report is published. Activist short sellers began changing their legal disclosures after Andrew Left was indicted for securities fraud in 2024.
Think Your Pension Liability is Immune From AI-driven Market Dynamics? Think Again!
For more than a decade Michael Green has been telling everyone who would listen about the dangers of investing in passive vehicles like index funds rather than in individual stocks. He has argued that the growing dominance of passive investing distorts capital formation, creates market instability, and carries the potential for a crash. “It turns out nobody believed me,” Green confessed to Institutional Investor, which labeled him the Cassandra of passive investing in a profile in 2025.
A New Cycle Emerges
The fastest growing corner of private equity isn’t secondaries, evergreens or continuation funds. It’s zombie funds. So-called zombie funds are those that are more than ten years old, have stopped making new investments and still hold portfolio companies they haven’t been able to sell without recognizing losses or sacrificing incentive fees. Meanwhile, GPs may continue collecting management fees on a net asset value that may be inflated.
Institutional Investor enters next chapter of growth with Apax Partners
Business development companies have billions of dollars of loans on their books that are at risk of further erosion in value, according to a new BDC watchlist. And that’s on top of the billions of dollars’ worth of loans that already aren’t being paid. The total fair value of these at-risk loans, according to first-quarter filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, comes to $5.7 billion, according to 9fin, an AI-based information platform for global debt markets.
Creative Disruption: Private Markets in 2026
U.S. life insurers may need to hold as much as $4.5 billion more regulatory capital each year for their growing private credit portfolios, according to a new study by Columbia Business School professors Xuelin Li, Samgmin S. Oh, and Giacomo Ricciardi. According to the professors, that’s because the private ratings used for private credit investments “systematically understate credit risk,” allowing insurers to hold less capital against potential losses.
Is Private Equity Failing America’s Retirees?
RETIRED OHIO TEACHER Trina Prufer calls it “one of the largest heists in history.” She isn’t talking about last year’s outrageous break-in at The Louvre’s French crown jewels collection, whereeight historical artifacts wereabsconded within four minutes.
Why Today’s Heightened Dispersion Suits a Systematic Approach
Following its bang-up year in 2025 betting on markets outside the U.S., Tekne Capital is at it again. The fund is up 47 percent through May, after a 50.8 percent gain last year, according to an investor. And that’s at a time when global macroeconomic concerns have rarely been more prominent. In what might seem counterintuitive, some of Tekne’s best performers have been European companies, according to Beeneet Kothari, founder of the $1.7 billion hedge fund firm.
Short-Dated Options Draw Investors as Event Volatility Surges
Retired teachers, former public pension board members, state treasurers, a candidate for public office, and a former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney turned whistleblower are among the voices in a new documentary, “Pension Fight Club,” that takes aim at U.S. public pension systems’ widespread investments in alternative assets.
Bigger Isn’t Always Better: The Case for North American Middle-market Infrastructure
Retired teachers, former public pension board members, state treasurers, a candidate for public office, and a former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney turned whistleblower are among the voices in a new documentary, “Pension Fight Club,” that takes aim at U.S. public pension systems’ widespread investments in alternative assets.
Q&A: What Backwardation in Oil Futures Reveals About Market Expectations
After prominent activist short seller Andrew Left was convicted of securities fraud this week, short sellers are feeling the heat. The 55-year-old head of Citron Research was found guilty on 13 counts of securities fraud for shorting companies he believed were overvalued, if not outright frauds, publishing or tweeting his views, then covering his shorts shortly after their stock prices fell — ultimately pocketing the profits.
These Are Institutional Investor’s 2026 Hedge Fund Rising Stars
Wall Street is agog over the latest tax avoidance hedge fund strategies, pioneered by AQR Capital Management, which account for more than $100 billion in assets under management. But the critiques are coming — even from inside the hedge fund tent.
Is the Lumber-Gold Ratio Signaling Caution for Markets?
Kenneth Tropin, founder and chairman of Graham Capital Management, has been named Institutional Investor’s 2026 hedge fund lifetime achievement award recipient. Tropin founded Graham, which currently has about $21 billion in assets under management, in 1994, building one of the earliest trend-following and macro-oriented hedge funds.
What’s Really Moving Commodity Markets in 2026?
The promise of AI continues to dominate venture capital, driving valuations of startups to new heights as big funds and corporations plow money into the top names. High valuations, however, are making exits rare—especially in a market weighed down by higher interest rates, inflation, and a war that shows no signs of ending. Even so, investors are not necessarily stepping back from AI.
Revitalizing US Infrastructure: Why Pension Capital Is the Missing Link
Eduardo Marques’ Pertento hedge fund, which he launched in London after leaving Chris Hansen’s Valiant Capital Partners in 2021, has been on something of a roll. Defying the stock market’s downturn, the fund gained more than 5 percent in the first quarter, on the back of three years of double-digit gains. “Our fund held ground during another quarter marked by plot twists,” Marques wrote in the firm’s first quarter letter to investors that Institutional Investor has obtained.
The Rise of the Everyday Commodity Hedge in a Volatile Era
Aristides Capital, a Louisville-based hedge fund founded by veteran manager Claire Brown, lost a big investor because of political disagreements, highlighting a tension that most of the industry prefers to avoid. Brown, a trans woman whose politics lean left, has become an outspoken critic of the Trump administration and U.S. foreign policy.
Why Geopolitical Risk is Fueling the Dollar’s Surge
Alternative investments don’t belong in defined contribution savings plans, argues Jeffrey Hooke, a retired private investment executive, author, and academic, who co-authored a comment letter to the Department of Labor explaining why. The DOL is preparing new rules following an executive order issued by President Trump to allow alternatives in defined contribution plans.
How Global Tensions Are Reshaping U.S. Equity Risk
Three investor advocates are asking the Financial Accounting Standards Board to reconsider guidance that allows private managers to write up the value of the secondaries they purchase, a practice they say may artificially boost reported returns. “When funds buy secondaries — mark them up in a lot of cases in a single day — it creates a distorted perception,” said Mark Higgins, founder of Enlightened Investor, one of three people asking the FASB to put the issue on its technical agenda this year.
Optimizing the Efficient Frontier: Opportunistic Credit Amid a Capital Structure Reset
When news surfaced about huge redemption requests at one of Blue Owl’s private credit funds last fall, Angela Miller-May, the chief investment officer of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, immediately reached out to the firm. The $60 billion Illinois pension fund wasn’t invested in the Blue Owl fund in question, which is a non-traded business development company, or BDC. Such semi-liquid vehicles are marketed to retail investors not institutions.
From Informing AI to Empowering Traders, Quality Data is Non-Negotiable
With the markets in turmoil, there may be no better time to launch a dedicated short fund. At least that’s the view of Lakshmi Ganapathi and Robert MacArthur, the husband-and-wife team who run Unicus Research, an independent research firm that offers short-selling ideas. “In response to persistent demand from institutional investors and family offices worldwide, Unicus Research has laid the groundwork for the launch of a dedicated short-only hedge fund,” Ganapathi told Institutional Investor.
Optimizing the Efficient Frontier: Opportunistic Credit Amid a Capital Structure Reset
The SPAC market has been on a comeback tour over the past year. But there’s likely to be a temporary slowdown if the market continues to have concerns over AI’s impact on the software sector, as well as geopolitical tensions, including the war with Iran.
Small Caps Stage Quiet Comeback as AI Trade Shows Cracks
The U.S. and Israel war on Iran will come down to “who controls the Strait of Hormuz,” says Ray Dalio, the retired founder and CEO of Bridgewater Associates. “If Donald Trump and the U.S. don’t win this war — with victory being easily measured by whether they can ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz—they will be perceived to have caused a disastrous situation they could not fix,” he wrote on Principled Perspectives, his Substack newsletter.
Why Monthly U.S. Jobs Reports Diverge but Long-Term Trends Align
Two years after his first hoped-for, publicly traded, U.S. investment fund failed to launch, Pershing Square Capital CEO Bill Ackman is back. Never one to give up, Ackman has filed registration papers to replace the one that failed, adding a sweetener that will also give investors a stake in Pershing Square Capital Management. But the timing raises questions. The markets have been shaky this year, and his flagship hedge fund has suffered.
The War-Driven Spike in Oil Prices May Lead to Only ‘Modest’ GDP Contractions, Says Michael Cembalest
The spike in oil prices after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran may have limited impact on the world economy, according to Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Cenbalest acknowledged that Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of the world’s oil consumption transits, has led to jumps in Brent crude oil and European gas prices.
The Value Iconoclast
Every summer, Dave Iben takes his team at Kopernik Global Investors away from the sultry air of St. Petersburg, Florida. They’ve decamped to Belgrade, Budapest, Marrakesh, Tokyo, Lisbon, London, Montreal, and Buenos Aires. This summer, they’ll head back to South America, traveling to Rio de Janeiro. “It’s important to get out there and see the world,” Iben says.
Allocators Prefer the ‘Fluffy Airy’ Words of Private Equity to the Hard Math of Hedge Funds
Over the past decade, the number of private equity funds has doubled while the number of hedge funds has stayed flat. Yet the reasons for that shift aren’t entirely logical, according to Dan Rasmussen, founder of the Verdad Partners hedge fund —and a longtime critic of private equity.
The Bitcoin Treasury SPAC Market Is Dead
The Bitcoin treasury deals that dominated the early months of last year’s revival of the special purpose acquisition company market have disappeared along with the plunge in Bitcoin prices. Bitcoin peaked in October and has since fallen roughly 50 percent. By yearend only 11 percent of the 144 SPACs that went public in 2025 were Bitcoin treasury deals, according to SPACInsider. And the two most-hyped deals — which have already sealed mergers in what is called a DeSPAC — have collapsed in value.
Maritime Defense AI Could Be the Next Big Investment Opportunity in Venture Capital
With the United States engaged in geopolitical conflicts on three continents around the globe, and U.S. defense spending near its all-time dollar peak, valuations of defense technology startups driven by AI have been soaring. Last year, defense technology deals reached a record $49.9 billion, almost double the 2024 total, according to PitchBook.
Private Credit Secondaries Surge Amid Muted Exit Environment
Last year private credit secondaries transactions hit $20 billion, almost double the prior year, as investors sought liquidity in an environment marked by longer holding periods, according to a new analysis by Evercore. That number is still a fraction of the $1.9 trillion private credit market, but the boom may be yet another worrisome sign for private credit, which has been wracked by bad news, write-downs, rising defaults, and redemptions in recent months.
Now Top Investors Are Doubting the AI Revolution
Jeff Currie has a message for investors in the so-called AI revolution. “Looking back at major technological booms, from railroads to the internet to shale, you see similar patterns emerge over time,” he explains. Even though the technologies can be transformative, investors can still lose a lot of money.
Liquidity Isn’t the Problem You Think It Is, Says Ludovic Phalippou
Despite beliefs to the contrary, liquidity is not a pressing concern for private equity investors, according to Ludovic Phalippou, the University of Oxford Said Business School professor. At least that’s the case for a “reasonable long-term investor,” he said. Phalippou drew his conclusions from a paper he coauthored with the Elise Gourier at ESSEC and Mark Westerfield at the University of Washington, which has just been published in the Journal of Finance.
UMass Tops Endowment Performance Rankings for 2025
The $1.8 billion University of Massachusetts Foundation topped its much-bigger peers in the annual endowment league tables with a 15.9 percent gain in 2025. The next-best result came from the $21.1 billion University of Michigan endowment, with a 15.5 percent gain, according to a just-published report by executive recruiter Charles Skorina. Just below that was Bowdoin College’s $2.9 billion endowment, coming in at 15.3 percent.
Chris Hohn’s TCI Tops Hedge Fund Gains in 2025
In a record year for hedge fund profits, Chris Hohn’s TCI stood out. The firm generated $18.9 billion in gains for investors in 2025, the biggest annual haul ever, according to a just-released annual survey of the top 20 money managers by Rich Sopher, chairman of LCH Investments. “The gains made by TCI, including the record largest gain in 2025, continue to be quite remarkable. Over the past three years TCI has made $40 billion net of fees for investors,” Sopher said.
The Numbers Are in on Short Sellers’ Losing Year
Last year was a tough one for U.S. short sellers, who ended the year with losses of $217 billion on a marked-to-market basis. S3 Partners, which tracks short sellers, said that short sellers had a 14.75 percent loss, compared with a gain for the S&P 500 of 16.39 percent. “Most short positions were unprofitable, with 70 percent of every dollar shorted being losers,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky,head of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.
Bill Ackman’s Big Year Came from AI, Trump - And an Insurance Play
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Holdings hedge fund ended 2025 with a 20.9 percent gain, even after losing money during the fourth quarter. It was the fourth time since 2020 that the fund has managed to post a more than 20 percent return. Ackman made bank by following the two dominant trends in the market last year: AI and anything related to President Donald Trump.
The ‘Precarious’ Risk-On Strategy That Drove Seawolf’s Outperformance
Seawolf Capital decided to “roll the dice” and invest aggressively last year, which led to a 44 percent gain in its portfolio of publicly traded equities. Seawolf principals Danny Moses, Vincent Daniel, and Porter Collins — who gained fame working at FrontPoint with “Big Short” star Steve Eisman — used a Mafia metaphor to describe their risk-on behavior.
Are Evergreen Funds Too Good to be True?
The popularity of evergreen fund structures, which offer private market investment options with periodic liquidity and lower fees than traditional funds, has been surging in recent years. According to PitchBook, evergreen funds now boast assets of nearly $500 billion — more than double the amount in 2022 — and could hit $1 trillion by the end of the decade.
Actually, Private Equity Firms Have Little to Fear from Litigation by Retail Investors
The expected flood of retail money into private assets facilitated by the Trump administration probably won’t result in a wave of litigation against private equity firms, according to market experts.
Marc Rubinstein on the Hidden Fault Lines in Modern Finance
With the stock market at exhilarating heights, any sign of weakness raises fears of another financial crisis. No wonder market prognosticators are asking: Could we soon face a repeat of 2008 or 2000? Marc Rubinstein, a former London-based hedge fund manager and bank analyst, thinks we should go back even further, past the infamous stock market crash of 1929 — to the Bankers’ Panic of 1907.
J.P. Morgan’s Michael Cembalest Finds ‘Warning Signs’ in Hedge Funds
Hedge funds are “swimming in the deep end of the pool” this year, according to J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s Michael Cembalest, who pointed out several “warning signs” to consider when looking at the sector. In a recent review of alternative investments, he said these funds are showing “record levels of crowding, concentration, and high beta exposure.” Leverage, by some estimates, has also skyrocketed.
Private Equity Fundraising Remains Glum, Four Years On
As 2025 nears its end, private equity firms are facing the fourth year of a slide in fundraising. During the first nine months these funds have raised $906.9 billion, down from more than $1.7 trillion in 2022, the year fundraising first began to decline, according to new data from PitchBook. Hilary Wiek, senior strategist at PitchBook, noted that both the number of funds closing and the amount of capital raised remain weak.
Facing Losses, Ackman Exits Chipotle and Nike
Bill Ackman’s hedge fund is having a good year, but it has sold out of two big losers: Chipotle and Nike. Pershing Square Holdings, Ackman’s publicly traded fund, was up more than 17 percent as of November 18, thanks largely to huge gains on the Fannie and Freddie mortgage giants, which have climbed close to 200 percent on Trump’s plan to release them from the government’s hands. But a few other holdings have been drags this year. Chipotle is Exhibit A.
The IMF Is Raising the Alarm on Insurance Investments in Private Credit
As worries about private credit have increased in recent months, regulators and rating agencies are raising more concerns about the role of insurance companies that are partially or fully owned by private equity firms. “Potential conflicts of interest and the lack of transparency” in private credit owned or managed by PE insurers are two areas that require “special attention,” according to a recent International Monetary Fund report on global financial stability.
Beliefs, Not Empirical Evidence, Have Driven the Boom in Alternatives, According to New Academic Research
The pension money that has poured into alternative assets over the past 20 years is largely due to investment consultants’ belief that these assets would outperform — despite little evidence that has happened, according to new academic research.
J.P. Morgan’s Michael Cembalest: Bubble or Not, AI Is Starting to Transform Industries
With AI-related stocks accounting for 75 percent of S&P 500 returns since ChatGPT was launched in 2023 — along with 80 percent of earnings growth and 90 percent of capital spending — there’s little surprise that AI is disrupting many industries even as talk of a bubble casts a cloud over markets.
Will Short Seller Andrew Left’s Latest Gambit to Prove His Innocence Work?
Facing federal securities fraud charges, short seller Andrew Left has petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission to define illegal trading, played in a golf tournament with President Trump in Florida, and asked the Department of Justice to dismiss the case against him. So far, nothing has stopped the wheels of justice from grinding towards a trial next spring. But could a new gambit be more fruitful?
Will Private Equity’s ‘Window of Opportunity’ Last?
A “window of opportunity” in the M&A markets led to a surge in private equity deal activity in the third quarter in both the number of deals and their dollar value, according to Pete Witte, EY global private equity lead analyst. Private equity deal value hit a record $310 billion during the quarter, largely driven by a few huge deals, including a $57 billion buyout for Electronic Arts, the largest leveraged buyout ever.
The Debate Over Private Credit Returns Is Just Heating Up
The private credit market is estimated to have reached $3 trillion in assets over the past decade on the promise of delivering higher returns than public credit. But as billion-dollar corporate defaults start to rock the credit markets, concerns have arisen about the investing case behind private credit.
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