Allocations to CTA’s and Global Macro strategies will be popular choices for investors in this quarter, according to the fifth edition of the quarterly ML Alternative UCITS Barometer (ML Barometer). Some 54% of respondents are looking to increase their exposure to Global Macro-Discretionary, making this the most popular strategy.
There is also considerable demand this quarter for equity managers, with a preference for Global and US managers. Indeed all equity strategies have seen a rise in demand excluding Japanese and Latin American strategies.
Global Emerging L/S is once again the preferred equity strategy this quarter with 52% of respondents looking to increase exposure. This is in sharp contrast with Latin American strategies, where it is noted that only 15% of investors were willing to increase their allocations.
The biggest losers this month are European L/S and UK L/S strategies.
John Lowry (pictured), Co-Founder and Chairman of ML Capital, says: “Investors are starting 2012 with a positive view and recognise the benefits of using alternative strategies in a volatile environment. Once you drill down, you are seeing a markedly changing Alternative UCITS landscape evolving, as evidenced from the latest Barometer results with demand shifting to some of the classic hedge fund strategies, Global Macro and Managed Futures balanced with a renewed interest in Global Emerging Markets strategies.”
ML Capital surveyed a diverse range of 50 active investors in Alternative Investments, who collectively manage over EUR80 billion and today invest upwards of EUR30 billion of those assets into Alternative UCITS. Questions are aimed at discovering their forthcoming strategy allocations and the same respondents are questioned each quarter, in order to track asset flows between UCITS strategies.
