Alternative Investment

News What a difference a month makes

In recent weeks, market conditions switched swiftly from panic mode to exuberance mode. Active investors are scratching their heads as markets no longer seem to be discounting a U.S. recession and any Fed rate hike in (...)

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News Hedge fund positioning after the storm

The positioning of CTAs and Global Macro strategies on equities remains very cautious at present. Meanwhile, long Fixed Income positions have increased over the past few weeks. The stance has thus turned more defensive, even though the outlook on EM assets has turned more (...)

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Strategy Why Merger Arbitrage should continue to do well

To navigate such unstable conditions, there is a limited range of “all weather” strategies. Merger Arbitrage and Fixed Income Arbitrage (including L/S Credit) have demonstrated their ability to navigate such a difficult year like in 2018, when most asset classes delivered (...)

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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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Innovation Nordea Asset Management launches its first fund with Madrague Capital Partners

Nordea Asset Management announces the launch on 06 December 2018, the Nordea 1 – European Long/Short Equity Fund (‘the Fund”). The Fund is a liquid alternative strategy designed for investors searching for yields higher than traditional fixed income products, while at the same (...)

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News Market Neutral L/S struggles as momentum stocks take a hit

Risk assets failed to reach a bottom early December despite the U.S and China agreeing to negotiate on trade at the G20 summit. The near-term outlook remains unclear from political uncertainties, which prevent investors from adding risk in portfolios despite lower equity (...)

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Opinion Hedge Funds agree on where rates are going

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Innovation Listing of the world’s first crypto-currency index ETP on SIX

With the Amun Crypto Basket HODL5 ETP (ticker: HODL, ISIN: CH0445689208) the Zug-based fin-tech company Amun AG launches the world’s first exchange listed crypto-currency index product (ETP), a SIX Swiss Exchange (...)

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Strategy L/S Equity strategies bear the brunt of the turmoil

L/S Equity and Event-Driven strategies underperformed due to their elevated market beta. L/S Equity strategies also suffered due to the rotation in risk factors which saw growth/ momentum stocks underperforming value and low beta (...)

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Opinion Why we would start reweighting U.S. stock-pickers

We are past the peak of the U.S. earnings reports. In the past, any unusually high individual stock volatility after an earnings announcement was a pattern that only appeared at macro inflection points.

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Opinion Hedge Funds Take A Hit in early Q4

Hedge funds were not immune to recent market developments. They were down during the first half of October due to the underperformance of CTA, L/S Equity, and Special Situations strategies. Meanwhile, Merger Arbitrage, Fixed Income Arbitrage, Global Macro and L/S Equity (...)

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Opinion Perspectives on L/S Equity strategies after the Selloff

Risk assets have yet to find stable ground after the recent turmoil. The rebound in equities since the October 11th trough appears fragile. Last week, the minutes of the latest FOMC meeting were hawkish and Italy’s 10-year sovereign spread with Germany jumped to levels unseen (...)

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Opinion What happened to hedge funds’alpha since the summer?

While hedge fund performance and alpha were honorable until the summer, our analysis suggests that they erased about 2.5% of alpha since June, with no turn in sight yet in September.

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Strategy Higher volatility puts Low Beta strategies in asweet spot

With the U.S. equity market under selling pressure in early September, the MSCI World has registered its worst week since late March, down almost -1.5%.

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Opinion What alikely NXP-Qcomdeal break means for merger arbitrage

Market conditions have been supportive since early July, but the flattening of the Treasury curve raises questions about the probability of a U.S. recession next year. Fund manager surveys suggest investors have erred on the side of caution (...)

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News The market for catastrophe bonds (« Cat bonds ») remains dynamic!

Over the 12 months, the market for Cat bonds - bonds issued by securitization structure to refinance insurance risks related to natural disaster - remains dynamic, both in terms of volume and performance...

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News Top 20 largest hedge funds

According to Bloomberg, the $69 billion Man Group tops the list of the largest hedge funds, an industry that is selectively recovering.

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News Legg Mason and Permal Announce Acquisition of Fauchier Partners

Legg Mason, Inc. and affiliate Permal have announced a definitive agreement to acquire Fauchier Partners, a leading European based manager of funds of hedge funds, from BNP Paribas Investment Partners. Fauchier Partners will be combined with Permal, one of the largest (...)

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Strategy An example of Quantitative Strategy: The Low Volatility approach

Low volatility indices and, more broadly, products based on quantitative strategies aiming to select only low-volatility stocks, have met with growing success with the financial community and investors. However, most of these indices have major drawbacks that cannot always (...)

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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 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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Innovation Nomura Launches Innovative Daily Investible Index Targeting Private Equity Returns

Nomura, Asia’s global investment bank, today announced the launch of the Nomura QES Modelled Private Equity Returns Index (Net) (the ?PERI„), the first daily investible index which targets returns similar to those which may be achieved through a global broad-based investment (...)

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Innovation Lyxor and Koris partner to launch an AIFMD Dynamic Core-Satellite Multimanager Strategy

Lyxor Asset Management (“Lyxor”) and Koris International (“Koris”) announce the launch of a Dynamic Core-Satellite (DCS) alternative multimanager strategy, underpinned by the DCS model devised by Koris...

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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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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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Strategy The EM FX carry trade is back

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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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News Apax Partners MidMarket raises €1 billion for its ninth fund

Apax Partners MidMarket, a leading French and European private equity firm, today announced that it has raised €1 billion for its ninth fund, Apax France IX.

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Product Performance fee impact

These fees are far from being insignificant for investor returns. According to Duncan Wilkinson, CEO of Alpha Simplex, more and more hedge fund managers, especially in the United States, have decided to offer products without any performance fees; a trend that should (...)

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News Nomura Announces Alliance With Bridge Capital Asset Management

Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd. announced that it has entered into an alliance agreement with Bridge Capital Asset Management Co., Ltd. (Bridge Capital), an investment manager specializing in incubation funds investing in hedge (...)

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