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 (...)

Read article

Opinion Hedge Funds agree on where rates are going

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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.

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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.

Read article

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%.

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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.

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

Strategy JPY at risk of reversal: who wins? who loses?

JPY and Japanese equities were the outcast of the rally, in diffidence of Abenomics’ and BoJ’s chances of success. They bear a risk of a reversal ahead of the coming BoJ meetings (April 28 & June 16) and the July Upper House (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

Pedagogy Back to the future, may 2011: Nobles Crus and Earth Element Fund

Yesterday they were introduced as innovatives products. Today, How far have they got and what are the prospects for tomorrow ? Two products in the spotlight this month: Nobles Crus or the blend of passion for wine and financial investment, and a quantitative systematic (...)

Read article

Stories Key Quant: New revelation of systematic management

"Key Quant”. The saga of Robert Baguenault de Viéville and Raphael Gelrubin could be summarized in these two words, the name of the company they run. Specialized in systematic trend-following management strategies (trend following (...)

Read article

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.

Read article

Note ESMA report values EU Alternative Investment Funds at €4.9 trillion

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) today published its first statistical report on European Union (EU) Alternative Investment Funds (AIF). The study finds that the EU AIF sector in 2017, as measured by Net Asset Value (NAV), amounted to (...)

Read article

Innovation Elite Advisers launches Precious Time, a fund which invest in collectible watches

Up to 50% will be invested in Patek Philippe watches, 30% in Rolex, Breguet, Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin and Cartier

Read article

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...

Read article

Interview Arnaud Chrétien and Serge Darolles : «The objective of QuantValley is to become the calling card for French Quantitive management»

Challenges, positioning and quantative management outlook in France. Arnaud Chrétien and Serge Darolles, respectively Chairman and deputy chairman of QuantValley, answer our questions and introduce us to their project aimed at promoting Paris’ image as a city of (...)

Read article

Strategy Managed futures strategies

This type of strategy is based on a simple idea: try to take advantage of an exposure on futures contracts («Futures») with the underlying being a financial instruments or a commodity ...

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article

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% (...)

Read article

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 (...)

Read article