Alternative Investment

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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Strategy Dollar depreciation helps CTAS

Since the U.S. presidential election on November 3 th, the USD has started a descent that may have legs under the new administration. The easing of trade tensions and an accommodative policy mix could put additional pressure on the DXY, which was down -1.7% since the (...)

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Strategy Most L/S Equity emerge unscathed from factor rotations

Several hedge fund strategies have momentum biases, in particular L/S Equity, and CTAs. Considering the fact that this rotation took place in a bullish environment, most hedge fund strategies ended the week in positive (...)

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Strategy Hedge fund positioning ahead of U.S. Elections

If past elections provide any guidance, prospects for a Trump reelection look slim. History suggests that a second term reelection almost always requires strong growth. In most past election campaigns, polls did not materially shift after (...)

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Strategy Our thoughts on the rally in momentum stocks

Momentum is a strategy which buys stocks trending higher and sells stocks on a downtrend within an index. It is systematic and has no considerations for earnings, valuation, or other fundamental metrics such as (...)

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Opinion Weaker Alpha potential in EM Debt after the rally…temporarily

The market crash that began in March sent the spread of EM debt (for the hard currency aggregate) to nearly 700 bps. It is now only 30 bps away from the pre-crisis level. This spread tightening reflects the ongoing economic recovery EM countries. Trends in Covid-19 are (...)

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News What are activists buying after the storm?

The Special Situations strategy went through a roller coaster since February. Typically, due to their long structural market beta, managers tend to underperform in risk-off episodes. However, as they also tend to look beyond short-term volatility, they usually rebound (...)

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News Mixed outlook for L/S Equity Neutral and Short-Selling

Lyxor’s L/S Equity Neutral peer group was down -2.8% year-to-date, hurt by extreme trading conditions and the constituents’ average market beta of 20%. The environment has been challenging for the strategy amid extreme stock volatility and unsettling heavy systematic trading (...)

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Strategy CTAs as shock absorbers

In the space of alternative strategies, Global Macro and Event-Driven strategies rebounded the most since March 23rd. Both Merger Arbitrage and Special Situations sub strategies benefitted as M&A deal spreads tightened significantly since (...)

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Note ESMA report values EU Alternative Investment Funds at €5.8 trillion

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) today published its second statistical report on European Union (EU) Alternative Investment Funds (AIF). The study found that the EU AIF sector in 2018, as measured by Net Asset Value (NAV), amounted to €5.8tn or nearly 40% (...)

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Strategy Small, Medium, Large HF: How to choose?

Should alternative portfolios favor smaller, medium, or larger hedge funds? The choice might not be as obvious as before and may be more dependent on the stage of the business cycle. For many years, small hedge funds have steadily outperformed their large peers, sometimes by (...)

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Strategy Trend reversals briefly halted the CTA rise

Despite the escalation of trade tensions during the third quarter, economic activity has remained quite resilient. Macro data releases even managed to beat expectations in the U.S. and in Japan, leading to a sudden rise in bond yields over the course of (...)

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Strategy Falling Geopolitical Premium to fuel Global Macro Strategies

Progress in trade talks between the U.S. and China and in Brexit negotiations knocked down safe assets last week. Bond yields rose in most developed countries and gold prices fell, as the stance on both thorny issues reversed and turned (...)

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Note Are markets becoming more unstable?

Readers of financial news may believe that ‘market corrections’, or ‘shocks’, or ‘five-sigma events’ are more common than they used to be. Winton Capital Management look at the historical data for a number of financial markets and find that there is no evidence for increasing (...)

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Regulation Regulatory prospects: 2012 and beyond

2009 was a year of intense reflection on the functioning of the financial sector. There followed an intense regulatory activity in 2010, unfortunately with few formal adoptions of regulations. 2011 marked the surge of the will to succeed with provisional schedules. Where do (...)

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Stories Capital Fund Management: Simply the best?

Discus Fund, one of CFM flagship funds, posted 23 percent year-to-date positive returns as of october end, the best performance amongst all the global systematic funds. This is the confirmation the know-how of the French manager which has shown exceptional trackrecords for (...)

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Note Strengths and weaknesses of France as an alternative management financial centre

According to a study conducted by Reinhold & Partners, despite recognised human and technical resources, French alternative asset management, for reasons specific to the French market, and because it is suffering from a lack of image, has not developed as (...)

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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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Note Investors increasingly embrace quantitative strategies

Over two thirds of respondents of the Deutsche Bank annual Alternative Investment Survey invest in systematic strategies, including one in every two who plan to add to one or more quantitative sub-strategies in 2016. The largest investment consultants and pension funds are (...)

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News John Paulson loses 31% in its main fund, Advantage Plus Fund

John Paulson, featured manager in recent years, who bet on economic recovery by the end of 2012, has lost 11 percent in the first week of August...

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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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Opinion Don’t cry for Argentina

In accordance with the Right Upon Future Offers or RUFO clause (similar to a conventional clause requiring creditors to be treated pari passu) contained in the 2005 agreement on the restructuring of the debt of the exchange bondholders (preventing Argentina from making more (...)

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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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Regulation ESMA rules aim to curb excessive risk taking by alternative fund managers

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published final Guidelines on remuneration of alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs). The rules will apply to managers of alternative investment funds (AIFs) including hedge funds, private equity funds and real (...)

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News The year 2016 gets off to a great start for CTAs

Year to date, most alternative strategy performance are negative. Despite this challenging environment, CTAs have recorded an excellent start since the beginning of the year. According to Credit Suisse, CTAs posted a gain of 7.38% in late February 2016, the strongest (...)

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News Long Short Credit resilience defies investors’concerns

Since early December, Merger Arbitrage and L/S Equity Market Neutral has outperformed, while L/S Equity remains under pressure. Relative Value Arbitrage was resilient. Based on a peer group of 28 onshore L/S Credit strategies, the median performance was -0.3% month-to-date (...)

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News A Taste of Summer for Hedge Funds

The winning streak for hedge funds continued last week with all strategies, besides CTAs, benefitting from the stabilization of market conditions. The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index was up 0.5%, bringing the month to date performance to a solid (...)

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News Value Stocks Lose Steam But Active Managers Stay Afloat

Value stocks have lost steam in early 2017 as market exuberance faded and investors reappraised the risks of trade wars. The renewed underperformance of value stocks has taken many investors by surprise as it follows a sharp rebound in the last quarter of (...)

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