Gotta Love the Hedge Funds

*** Glazer's shiny new toy

*** The miners charge up?

*** William Hill investors unimpressed...how does theChinese miracle work?...the liquidity black hole...and more

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------------------- Manchester United owner Malcolm Glazer can take his shiny new toy off the London Stock Exchange should he so wish. Glazer now officially owns 75% of the Red Devils...and may just be vying for the 90% that will allow him to squeeze out the final shareholders.

It's been a long fight for Glazer: two years after the battle first commenced for the group, he can now finally do with the club what he darn well pleases. Much to the dissatisfaction of the fans, who remain unimpressed with the £265m debt that the American billionaire has piled onto United's balance sheet.

And defacing Man U's merchandise store, as they did yesterday, will not help the fans: according to the analysts they are now powerless to do anything. At least we predicted the Man U takeover to a tee. Unlike the prospects for the miners, that is...

Yesterday we reckoned that blue chip miners are set to suffer in the face of the strengthening dollar. Not likely: despite the dollar trading at $1.833 to the pound the highest since November last year miners still closed atop the FTSE 100. Both Xstrata and Antofagasta closed around 3% up yesterday.

The blue chip index inched 2 points lower to close at 4,884. The FTSE 250 gained 0.1% to trade at 6,805. More notably, only 1.7bn shares changed hands on Monday as European bourses were closed for Whit Monday.

William Hill topped the loser list yesterday following reports it acquired all 624 of Stanley Leisure's betting shops. The deal will cost Hill £504m and investors were certainly not happy. Why?

easyJet will lose its long-serving chief executive Ray Webster after almost 10 years in the job...and nearly one year ahead of schedule. Webster will leave the no-frills airliner to spend more time with his family in New Zealand. And not even news that the group's founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou will rejoin the board as a non-executive director could lift bitter investors: as the share price fell some 2%.

And property website Rightmove said on Monday that although asking prices for UK homes rose 0.3% between mid-April and mid-May, the annual gain slumped to 4.9%. This is down from 7% - and is the lowest annual rate since these figures were first made available threeyears ago.

------------------- How does the Chinese miracle work? asks Greg Grillot in the Daily Reckoning. The average retiree has seen his pension soar by 900% in the past 13 years while inflation stayed below 5% annually over the same time. Something just doesn't 'add up', Grillot says. Unless, that is, the Chinese are bending...or even breaking...some laws of economics, with dire consequences to follow.

Nationalised ID cards are all the new rage, it seems. Not only is the UK administration on the verge of approving a four-years-in-the-making national ID plan; in America they've latched onto the idea too. But is this a good thing? Definitely not, says Jim Amrhein of Whisky & Gunpowder. Instead what we're heading for is 'a life on camera, on the record, and under a microscope'.

Imagine being long General Motors bonds...before the S&P downgrade; and short its stock...before Kirk Kerkorian attempted to buy 5% of the group's shares, which sent the share price up 18%? That must hurt: but that's exactly what happened to a number of hedge funds. But the real danger to markets in this situation is 'a loss of liquidity', Dan Denning says.

A liquidity black hole will not bring out more buyers; instead it will lead to more sellers...who will then push the market lower...which will result in even more sellers. Has that downward cycle begun? asks Dan.