Hunterbrook's headline hedge

Buy the rumor, sell the news—unless you’re the one writing it.

Hunterbrook is shaking up the stodgy world of hedge funds with a new way of doing things. Founded in 2023 by Sam Koppelman and Nathaniel Horwitz, the firm has raised roughly $100 million over the past year to build a two-part operation: Hunterbrook Media, a newsroom that publishes general news and long-form investigations, and Hunterbrook Capital, a hedge fund that can trade on those investigations—before they are published.

So far, the news-driven strategy has paid off. Hunterbrook Capital gained 23% in the first nine months of 2025, beating hedge-fund performance benchmarks and topping the roughly 15% return of the S&P 500 over the same period.

The competitive edge

The idea itself isn’t entirely new: Short-seller outfits like Hindenburg Research and Muddy Waters Research have long published investigations alongside trades. The difference is structure.

While other firms with research arms are explicitly investment vehicles, Hunterbrook’s newsroom is, at least in theory, independent, and it publishes reporting even when there’s no clear trade attached. While the media business often feeds the capital business, there’s a longer-term strategy at play here, too: If the media arm produces enough credible, public-interest journalism, Hunterbrook could become more widely read and more trusted than a pure hedge fund, giving its reporting greater market impact.

It’s also a cost-efficient model. Compared with a traditional hedge fund, Hunterbrook benefits from salary arbitrage: it’s cheaper to hire journalists than hedge-fund analysts. Compared with traditional media, it isn’t trying to maximize audience size. Instead, it’s trying to build readership: a smaller but deeply engaged community that can surface documents, flag inconsistencies, and generate story leads, which could lower distribution and investigative costs.

The ethics of it all

Legally, the structure matters. Hunterbrook Capital is regulated as a hedge fund, not a newsroom. That means it relies on open-source journalism, drawing only from public records, data, and original reporting, rather than insider tips or non-public disclosures that would cross regulatory lines. By the letter of securities law, the model passes muster.

Ethically, the questions are harder. Journalism’s power comes from independence: the idea that stories are pursued because they matter, not because they move prices. Hunterbrook’s structure complicates that norm since, by design, it prioritizes investor returns. Even if reporting is done in good faith, the ability to time publication to optimize trades blurs the line between editorial judgment and financial strategy.

Hunterbrook has found alpha in journalism. Now it has to prove the credibility doesn’t go short.—SY