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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Interview François Lhabitant : «We have received dozens of proposals but only one long / short manager passed our selection ! »

Established in 2001, Kedge Capital manages the assets of the Bertarelli family. The company invests successfully nearly $ 6 billion in hedge funds, for a net return of 6.7% annually since its inception...

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News Quant funds in turmoil

With the losses recorded by one fund of top quant manager, Renaissance Technologies, and three other funds of Goldman Sachs, the quantitative management industry might be facing its first real crisis.

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News Nomura to Invest in Private Equity Fund in China

Nomura will participate as a limited partner in the fund which is managed by Jiu You Equity Investment Management LLP, a fund management firm that invests in the high tech and biopharmaceutical industries...

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News 2017 Hedge Funds Outlook: Better prospects, but too early for champagne

An uneventful week for hedge funds. Amid reduced trading volumes and a pause in the Reflation trade, most Lyxor indices were about flat. CTAs and Macro funds stood out, in symmetry. The former lost on US yields and equities, the latter gained on their long US bonds and short (...)

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Interview Jérôme Teiletche: «Replicators are complementary to hedge funds. They are also more liquid and transparent than investable indices »

Lombard Odier has been among the first asset management firms to launch investment vehicles which replicate hedge funds. We carry out an assessment with Jérôme Teiletche, the head of systematic investment strategies…

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Innovation CI Institutional Asset Management launches CI Global Private Real Estate Fund for Canadian institutional and high net worth investors

CI Institutional Asset Management, a division of CI Investments Inc. ("CI"), today announced the launch of a global real estate fund in association with CBRE Global Investment Partners, a division of one of the world’s pre-eminent real estate services and investment (...)

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Stories Frozen Libyan Money

The conflict between the rebels and the regime of Muammar Khadafi has lead authorities of different countries of the Western world to freeze Libyan assets and have hindered the development of hedge fund FM Capital (...)

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Stories Jim Simons : Geometry Professor and CEO of Renaissance Technologies hedge fund

Recently named IAFE/SunGard Financial Engineer of the Year 2006, Jim Simons, brilliant mathematician and founder of Renaissance Technologies, became one of the richest men in the world, in only a few years.

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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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Innovation EXQIM announces the launch of Exqim Blue Fund

Created by two former senior executive managers of SGAM AI, Exqim launches Exqim Blue Fund, a multi-asset fund whose investment process is based on quantitative strategies and allocation.

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Pedagogy What is Long/Short Equity ?

Hedge funds apply a vast array of investment strategies which can be more or less complex. In this article, we shall focus on the Long / Short strategy…

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Strategy Agricultural land rush of investment funds!

After launching products indexed to changes in prices of agricultural products, many banks and investment funds are turning now to the land acquisition...

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News Alternative investors hunt yield in post crisis Europe under review at Debtwire’s European Forum

Debtwire hosts its seventh European forum at the Dorchester in London today. Senior bankers, lawyers, investors, financial sponsors, corporate finance and debt advisory specialists will provide their insight on the current state of the debt market, spanning from primary (...)

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Note Hedge funds: The CTAs drift

Since mid-2011, CTAs cumulative loss is between -10.6% (HFRI macro systematic index) and -16.8% (Credit Suisse Managed Futures Index). For the first quarter of this year, CTAs show a drawdown of about 3% which is expected to increase in April (-0.66% for HFRX CTA index) (...)

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