Alternative Investment

Opinion Bond Pain trade for global macro

Gyrations in U.S. rates were highly challenging to navigate. Bond volatility surged in October as the Fed prepared to withdraw monetary accommodation and as investors struggled to assess the medium-term path of (...)

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Strategy L/S China through regulatory and business upheaval

Trading conditions in China have severely deteriorated. After reaching their peak by mid-February, stocks lost earlier gains in March, on evidence of a plateauing economy and as stretched investors’ positioning unwounded. Chinese markets were then stuck in a volatile trading (...)

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Strategy Mega Mergers to keep fueling Risk Arbitrage

With risk assets back to record highs, markets are currently looking for the next catalyst that would push equities higher. But with the Fed potentially signaling a looming reduction in asset purchases at the next FOMC meeting on June 16, it seems wise to remove some risk (...)

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Strategy CTAs add value in the new correlation regime

With bond yields facing upward pressures as the global economy heats up, finding diversification across traditional asset classes has been increasingly difficult. Equity valuations, which were propelled by low interest rates in the past decade, are vulnerable in the face of (...)

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Strategy Are L/S Equity Managers playing the European Recovery?

Economic prospects in Europe are noticeably improving. The new wave of virus infections since late fall 2020 led to tighter mobility restrictions, which delayed the European recovery. High frequency indicators suggest economic activity was down around 20% from normal over (...)

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Strategy Value, Momentum and the Outlook for Market Neutral L/S

Momentum stocks experienced a correction since Pfizer announced their Covid-19 vaccine results early November. Performance has nonetheless stabilized over the course of March, as the rebound in Value stocks has been persistent and started to be shown in the Momentum risk (...)

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Strategy CTAs Rally despite dreadful momentum in Equity Markets

With investors questioning the sustainability of equity valuations in a context of rising bonds yields, a Momentum reversal in equities is taking shape. Defensive sectors, and more recently Technology stocks, faced downward pressures while Financials and Energy (...)

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Strategy Market neutral l/sto remain under pressure

In recent months, Market Neutral L/S strategies underperformed other hedge fund strategies, in a context where risk assets rallied following the Pfizer vaccine announcement in November 2020. While the strategy is not designed to capture the equity market beta, the alpha (...)

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News Global macro strategies play safe with U.S. Inflation hedges

In the space of alternatives, Global Macro strategies have embraced reflation trades in the past quarter, scaling up positions on EM FX, equities, commodities and inflation linked bonds at varying degrees.

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News 2021 Alpha outlook in Japan

We see the alpha environment in Japan improving in 2021. First, we expect a more supportive macro backdrop, setting the stage for a wider set of investment themes. Japan’s second wave of Covid-19 has peaked and its impact on activity looks manageable so far and will likely (...)

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Strategy How do L/S Equity Hedge Funds position on the recovery?

The consensus now expects a supportive 2021 backdrop for risky assets. With vaccines rolling out and continued reflation policies, the normalization of the world economy would accelerate, amid lower geopolitical uncertainties, still ample global (...)

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News Hedge funds increasingly active in bitcoin

While the bitcoin bull run in 2017 was largely driven by retail investors, the 2020 surge appeared to be driven by a wider set of investors, including institutionals.

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News Alternative strategies for a democratic U.S. Congress

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Strategy The EM FX carry trade is back

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Strategy Five reasons why special situations outlook is brightening

Special Situations strategies have been under pressure in 2020, both on their event and credit arbitrage books. Due to their long structural market beta, managers have underperformed early this year. They have retraced most but not all they have (...)

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Interview Alain Albizzati: "It is necessary to bring more transparency to the process of quantitative fund management"

According to Alain Albizzati, Head of Alternative Investments and Structured Products at Lazard Frères Gestion, private investors and institutional investors do not have the means to perform very advanced "due diligence,", and focus on local and recognized management (...)

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Interview Antoine Prudent : « InPact Advisory is currently conducting a mission for 5 large Swiss institutional investors willing to invest in an Alternative Risk Premia strategy »

According to Antoine Prudent, founding partner of InPact Advisory, the advantage of Risk Premia products is also to reduce costs compared to the usual pricing for alternative products…

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News Institutional investor appetite is back for quant funds

The recent CTA performances encourage institutional investors to more closely monitor this type of hedge fund. Thus, according to Preqin, 52% of them wish to increase their exposure to this type of alternative strategy this year (vs 14% last (...)

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Stories Axa Rosenberg: a $217 million bug.

The American quantitative management firm is struggling to get over a scandal that originated from an IT error and which lead 600 of its clients to lose money.

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News Lyxor announces new partnership with Quantmetrics for its AIFM managed account platform

Lyxor Asset Management (“Lyxor”) announces a new partnership with Quantmetrics Capital Management (“Quantmetrics”) to join Lyxor’s AIFM managed account platform. With this partnership, Lyxor will launch its first AIFMD-compliant strategy on the (...)

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Innovation BlueHive Capital announced the successful launch of its first fund: BlueHive Opportunities – Global Alpha.

Founded in 2013, BlueHive Capital is a Paris-based Alternative Asset Manager. The company was launched by the former Natixis CIB’s Global Alpha team, headed by Sebastien Boucher.

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Innovation Neuberger Berman launches long-short equity fund for portfolio manager Steve Eisman

Neuberger Berman, a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager, has launched the Neuberger Berman Absolute Alpha Fund, a long-short equity portfolio managed by renowned investor Steve Eisman and his (...)

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Interview Espen Haug : «I am also playing with the idea of setting up an Anti-Hedge Fund»

Former Amaranth’s and Paloma Partners’ derivative trader, Espen Haug plans to launch an Anti-Hedge Funds and believes his strategies are too complex to be turned into «Black Box»...

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Strategy Management of hedge fund portfolios during crisis periods: the contribution of systematic overlays

The implementation of systematic overlays can be considered as an alternative to short-term rebalancing of hedge fund portfolios, or as an active component of alternative allocations.

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Regulation Amundi Alternative Investments obtains AIFM authorisation

Amundi Alternative Investments SAS (Amundi AI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amundi, has obtained AIFM authorisation from the French securities regulator (Autorité des Marchés Financiers) for all of its investment solutions. The AIFM directive, transposed by the EU member (...)

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News Gilt wobbles fuel Global Macro strategies

Mounting signals that the latest leg of the bond market rally has started to reverse fueled hedge fund strategies last week. Most recent inflation prints outpaced expectations both in the U.S. and the U.K., as consumer prices rose +1.9% and +2.9% year-over-year in August, (...)

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Note ‘$1bn Club’ Managers Hold 88% of all Hedge Fund Capital

The 668 firms with at least $1bn in assets under management (AUM) now control $2.75tn out of the total $3.13tn held by the hedge fund industry

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Note CTAs Rock the House in January

The performance of CTAs during the recent market meltdown is remarkable. It highlights the fact that the power of diversification of the strategy in a portfolio remains intact. Recent developments provide additional evidence that managed futures often outperform traditional (...)

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Interview Bruno Crastes : « Our models are still based on an enhanced version of the Black-Litterman model »

Former star managers of Amundi, Bruno Castres and Vincent Chailley have created H2O Asset Management, a London-based alternative management company. In an interview with Next-Finance, Bruno Castres unveils the firm’s objectives and (...)

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People Moves AXA IM announces details of new investment team focused on liquid absolute return strategies

AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) today announces details of its new investment team focused on liquid absolute return strategies – AXA IM Chorus. The creation of this new team was first announced in April 2016 when Pierre-Emmanuel Juillard re-joined AXA IM to build and lead (...)

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