Funds
PEGAS, a pan-European gas trading platform of EEX Group operated by Powernext, has reported a doubling of the volume of futures contracts traded on the platform in June 2019 compared to June 2018.
In total, 111.3 TWh of futures products were traded (June 2018: 55.5 TWh), mostly on the TTF hub which registered 92.2 TWh on its own (June 2018: 42.7 TWh).
With a 44 per cent increase, the spot segment also experienced a very strong growth and reported 108.1 TWh in June 2019 (June 2018: 74.9 TWh) thanks to the good performance of most of the hubs.
This month
Energy commodity merchant Castleton Commodities International (CCI) has closed two credit facilities totalling USD2.775 billion. The facilities include a committed borrowing base facility and a committed unsecured revolving credit facility.
The borrowing base facility is comprised of a USD750 million three-year tranche, a USD1.15 billion two-year tranche and a USD500 million 364-day tranche. The unsecured revolving credit facility is comprised of a single USD375 million 364-day tranche.
The proceeds will refinance CCI’s maturing borrowing base and revolving credit facilities signed in July 2018, fund general corporate purposes and provide letters of credit for the Company’s merchanting activities in multiple countries. The borrowing
Lyxor Asset Management has partnered with Academy Investment Management, a New York based asset management firm, to launch the Lyxor/Academy Quantitative Global UCITS Fund, a systematic market neutral strategy focused on global equity markets.
The Fund utilises a proprietary statistical arbitrage strategy, trading both momentum and mean-reversion signals, to exploit short-term pricing anomalies in global equity markets through a universe of approximately 3,600 liquid large-cap and mid-cap stocks in 23 equity markets across Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. The Fund seeks to take advantage of market inefficiencies through both traditional data such as price and volume and non-technical
By Joe McGrath – Returns from the low end of investment grade debt are doing nothing to excite investors, so hedge funds are looking to higher yields … in China.
Investors seeking a higher yielding income source are flocking to China and the country’s high yield bond market is booming.
High yield is characterised by loans with a non-investment grade credit rating, which is typically BBB or below from Standard & Poors, or below BAA from Moody’s. According to a Bloomberg report citing AJ Securities data, China had some GBP130 billion (RMB1.1 trillion) of local company bonds with a coupon
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) increased its volume on the power derivatives market in June by 14 per cent to 263.6 TWh compared to the previous year.
This growth was driven in particular by the German (161.8 TWh, +22 per cent) and French (27.5 TWh, +25 per cent) power derivatives markets. On 3 June, EEX added futures contracts for Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia, allowing trading participants to now trade and clear 20 market areas throughout Europe. In the new CSEE futures contracts EEX recorded a volume of 382,128 MWh during the month.
In the EEX emissions trading market, the volume
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued an Order filing and simultaneously settling charges against Respondent, Eagle Market Makers, Inc. (Eagle), an Illinois firm, for engaging in wash sales and noncompetitive transactions which were traded on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (collectively, CME).
The Order requires Eagle to pay a USD350,000 civil monetary penalty and implement and improve its internal controls and procedures.
James McDonald, the Director of Enforcement, says: “As today’s action shows, the CFTC will work tirelessly to ensure that the derivatives markets remain open and competitive, and are not undermined
Apex Group (Apex), has successfully closed the acquisition of the Corporate and Private Client Services (CPCS) and Throgmorton businesses of Link Group’s Asset Services division.
The acquisitions add over 600 employees and 6,000 clients to the Apex Group, across multiple markets, and bolsters Apex’s corporate services capabilities adding specialist hubs in the UK, Jersey, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Hungary and Switzerland.
Over the past eighteen months, Apex has continued to expand its capabilities to meet client demand successfully executing a programme of strategic acquisitions to deliver on its ambition to offer a unique end-to-end solution for global asset managers
Hedge fund managers ended May 2019 down 1.09 per cent on an equal-weighted basis, and 1.37 per cent on an asset-weighted basis, outperforming the global equity market which slumped 6.12 per cent during the month.
The return of US-China trade tension weighed on hedge fund managers’ performance during the month, leaving barely a third of the hedge fund managers tracked by Eurekahedge in positive territory over the month.
Over the month of May, USD0.9 billion of investor outflows and USD18.3 billion of performance-driven losses were recorded by the global hedge fund industry.
The United States dominates the PE marketplace when it comes to size of AUM size. It is estimated that the top 300 global PE managers manage USD1.5 trillion in assets, of which US-based managers account for USD1 trillion; this compares to USD177 billion among UK-based managers.
Global investors pulled another USD3.78 billion from hedge funds in May, according to the May 2019 eVestment Hedge Fund Asset Flows Report. However, despite the overall negative industry flows, many funds have been successfully able to raise new assets in 2019.
This includes funds in categories which are seeing the most negative outflows. This highlights the importance, firstly, of strong performance, but secondly the roles of marketing and sales within hedge funds, and the ability to find and exploit demand for funds in even some of the most challenging segments.
May’s results bring year to date (YTD) flows to
