Funds
Trader Jeff Tompkins has launched his flagship hedge fund, Altos Capital. The main objective of the fund is to outperform the S&P.
With global markets in freefall on the back of coronavirus fears, BlueBay Asset Management recommends curbing risk levels for now – but suggests alpha opportunities will arise from this week’s market mayhem.
The bedlam continued on Friday as both the S&P500 and FTSE 100 lost another 2.8 per cent during early trading, with the Nikkei 225 and DAX both down more than 3 per cent. FX markets also slumped this week following heightened fears over the rapid spread of Covid-19, as gold surged to a seven-year high, and the price of a barrel of Brent Crude oil dropped to USD50.
Travel,
Man Group has seen its funds under management surge to a record USD117.7 billion in the last year, up from USD108.5 billion in 2018, which drove pre-tax profits up 54 per cent to USD386 million, as positive fund performance outweighed investor outflows.
The London-headquartered publicly-listed global hedge fund group generated positive investment gains of more than USD10 billion in 2019, reversing the previous year’s negative movement of USD7.7 billion. The solid performance ultimately outweighed the USD1.3 billion of net outflows suffered during the year (2018 saw Man draw net inflows of USD10.8 billion).
CEO Luke Ellis described 2019 as a
Pretium Partners has acquired the investment management business of Latigo, a fund manager that specialises in event-driven investing with strategies including distressed securities, special situations and long/short credit and equity investing.Latigo co-founders David Ford and David Sabath are joining Pretium as Senior Managing Directors, members of the Executive Committee and remain as Portfolio Managers of Latigo’s investment vehicles, effective immediately. Additional investment professionals as well as several key operational members of the Latigo team are also joining Pretium. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Founded in 2005, Latigo is a fund manager that specialises in event-driven investment opportunities. Strategies
Investors are slashing their exposure to hedge fund products at the “worst possible time”, says Man Group’s Pierre-Henri Flamand, amid signs that the long bull market run is starting to run out of steam – throwing up new opportunities for actively-managed strategies.
In spite of a strong year for hedge funds in 2019 – up more than 10 per cent for the year, their best performance in a decade – they were still comfortably outflanked by equity benchmarks, with the S&P 500 climbing more than 31 per cent as the stock market sustained its strong momentum.
Now, though, Flamand – Man GLG’s
The surge in appetite for ESG-themed trades could be leading investors to ignore investment fundamentals – potentially fuelling a ‘90s-style tech bubble, RWC Partners has warned.
The increase in awareness of climate change has prompted allocators to pile into ESG-positive names in recent years, sending share prices soaring, while certain stocks seen as non-ESG friendly – such as tobacco – have tumbled.
But Graham Clapp, portfolio manager of the RWC Continental European Equity Fund, believes the push towards ESG may create bubbles similar to the tech boom of the late 1990s. By the time the tech bubble eventually burst in
Hedge fund managers returned 0.07 per cent in January 2020, recording their weakest January since 2016, according to data released by Eurekahedge.
LFIS has launched the LFIS Vision – Global Derivatives Opportunities Fund , a highly-diversified derivatives arbitrage strategy that seeks to profit from dislocations in implied parameters to generate all-weather, absolute returns. The Fund leverages LFIS’ investment approach which blends quantitative and qualitative analysis, and the firm’s complete investment infrastructure and proprietary pricing models which are close to those of an investment bank. The result is a fund with multiple dimensions of diversification, across asset classes, including equities, interest rates, currencies and commodities; geographies, including the US, Europe and Asia; and instruments, including vanilla puts and calls, variance swaps and various bespoke derivatives.
CTAs are maintaining their strong start to 2020, with trend-following portfolios well-balanced between cyclical and defensive assets, boosting profits in the first six weeks of the year.
Long positions across equity, fixed income, precious metals and US treasuries have strengthened returns lately, analysts at Lyxor Asset Management said, adding that several factors may to support performance throughout the year.
Lyxor’s weekly briefing note, by Philippe Ferreira, senior strategist, Jean-Baptiste Berthon, senior strategist, and Pierre Carreyn, hedge fund analyst, observed how CTA portfolios are more balanced between cyclical assets – specifically equities – and defensive assets such as fixed income, precious
From the new UK chancellor’s career background to the latest campaigns from the best-known US managers, activist hedge funds are firmly back in the spotlight, not least after a stellar 12 months of performance.
