Herbalife is rallying because the market can't inflict enough pain on Bill Ackman
Herbalife is up 6%.
The supplement company that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is very publicly betting against is rallying on Thursday. At the same time, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Ackman's most prominent long position - or stock he is betting will go higher - is getting crushed.
Why is Herbalife going higher? Because someone out there is executing a full-on Ackmanfreude trade, simply taking the other side of Ackman's bets.
Earlier this week Herbalife reported earnings that beat expectations but were more or less unremarkable.
Meanwhile, Valeant shares fell by as much as 18% on Thursday after a report in The Wall Street Journal revealed that Ackman was unhappy with Valeant's conference call last week to address allegations regarding a specialty pharmacy company named Philidor.
Among other things, Ackman sent a harried email to Valeant executives after the call while also reportedly telling his team at Pershing Square it needed to either double down on its Valeant bet or sell all of it. (It doubled down.)
