Alternative Investment

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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Strategy Stockpicking strategies remain in the driving seat

Market developments in May saw some trend reversals across the fixed income and commodity space. On the one hand, the unfolding of the Italian political crisis coincided with a rebound of U.S. Treasuries during the second half of May. On the other (...)

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Opinion Macro Managers are scratching their heads just like you

Europe took center stage this week, with further developments in the Italian political saga reminding investors that there are still powerful Eurosceptic forces at play and forcing investors to end their hopes of meaningful eurozone reforms. However, fading prospects of (...)

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News Most turbulences are behind for merger arbitrageurs

Market volatility also played out, as well as the growing share of jumbo deals, usually more sensitive to adverse developments. Amid very supportive conditions for M&A (from the tax reform in particular), weaker deal rationales are also mentioned as a greater source of (...)

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News Low Beta strategies lead the pack as equities drop

Unstable market conditions were supportive for hedge funds, in relative terms. Liquid hedge fund benchmarks were down -1% in March, with Distressed and Special Situations strategies underperforming. On a positive note, low beta strategies did (...)

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Strategy Time to reinforce neutral fund allocations

We think it is time to strengthen L/S Neutral funds allocation. While they faced months of challenging transversal stock rotations, we expect their environment to improve for several reasons.

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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 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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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 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 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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Interview Olivier Combastet: « The purchase of farmlands is a good investment! »

Since 2006, Pergam Finances has invested in farmlands located in Argentina and Uruguay. For first in investors, the latent gain is above 40%...

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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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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 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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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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Strategy Pension funds predicted to increase hedge funds exposure in the coming years

The current pension allocation is only a fraction of the allocation of many of the leading endowment funds, many of whom have up to 50% of their portfolio invested in hedge funds.

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Innovation GAM launches GAM Systematic Global Equity Market Neutral

The GAM Systematic Global Equity Market Neutral fund uses systematic strategies and proprietary trading systems to invest in global single-name equities. Designed to deliver returns uncorrelated with a long-only equity (...)

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Interview Lionel Semonin: «Earth Element is a commodity fund using long-short strategies! »

Ex-BNP Paribas and former head of JP Morgan’s Commodity Investor Solutions, Lionel Semonin has launched Four Elements Captial, an asset management firm with a focus on commodity markets.

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