Einhorn’s Greenlight Hedge Funds Rebound With 7.4% Gain in May

• Green Brick, his largest U.S. holding as of March, jumped 20%
• Value-style stock picker could benefit if rotation takes hold

David Einhorn’s hedge funds surged 7.4% in May as U.S. stocks rallied.

Even with the month’s gain, the Greenlight Capital funds are down 16.6% this year, according to an investor update on Friday viewed by Bloomberg. The rebound came as value stocks, long out of favor, beat out growth shares late in the month.

The S&P 500 index’s 4.5% gain in May was fueled by fresh federal stimulus measures and hopes that global economies are on the mend as lockdowns ease. U.S. states’ jobless rolls shrank for the first time during the coronavirus outbreak, though millions more Americans filed for unemployment benefits.

Einhorn’s value approach to investing has mostly been out of step with market trends in recent years. He’s still working to climb out of a hole that started with a 20% loss in 2015 and deepened with his steepest drop ever three years later, when the main fund fell 34%.

With this year’s decline, he would need to return about 80% to get back to where he was at the end of 2014. The firm managed $2.6 billion as of Jan. 1, down from $12 billion at its peak.

Einhorn told clients in his first-quarter letter that value stocks were poised for a rebound, as the number of cheap equities hit an extreme. He said he hadn’t been this optimistic about opportunities since the 2008 financial crisis.

Much of Einhorn’s gains in the month have come from Green Brick Partners Inc., his largest U.S. stock holding at the end of the first quarter. The homebuilder surged 20%.

A spokesman for New York-based Greenlight declined to comment.