Funds
Amun AG, a Swiss fintech aiming to facilitate access to crypto-asset investments, has completed its first funding round, bringing on board a number of experienced industry figures including Adam Draper, Founder of Boost VC, Graham Tuckwell, Founder of ETFS Capital, Greg Kidd, Co-Founder Hard Yaka, as well as four family offices.
Amun is a technology platform for creating crypto indices and issuing crypto products, in addition to listing, settling, and custody of physically-backed crypto products on public exchanges. Amun listed HODL, the world’s first physically backed ETP (exchange traded product) based on five leading cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, BTC Cash, XRP
Franklin Templeton Investments Canada has launched the Franklin K2 Alternatives Fund to provide investors with access to alternatives investments in a mutual fund format.
The fund uses a multi-strategy approach in seeking to dampen volatility and offer downside protection, while providing added diversification and low-correlation to asset classes typically held in a traditional portfolio.
“With the market environment being unpredictable over the past year, investors are looking to reduce volatility and protect capital,” says Duane Green (pictured), president and CEO of Franklin Templeton Investments Canada. “Our alternatives fund addresses these investor needs and combines the benefits of a sophisticated solution
CME Group is aiming to make equity index futures trading more accessible to active traders through the launch of Micro E-mini futures on the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000 and Dow Jones Industrial Average indexes.
The new Micro E-mini contracts will be one-tenth the size of CME Group’s existing E-mini futures on the respective equity indexes. They will be available for trading in May 2019.
“Futures trading has been growing in popularity for active traders all over the world,” says Tim McCourt (pictured), CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. “The smaller contract size of
Hedge funds returned an average of +1.27 per cent in February, according to the just-released eVestment February 2019 hedge fund return data, building on a strong January to bring year-to-date (YTD) performance to +4.55 per cent.
The contrast to 2018’s average industry performance of -5.05 per cent is stark and demonstrates the industry’s effort to shake off last year’s challenges. The first two months of 2019 offered up the industry’s best returns to start a year since 2012, when average returns were at +5.78 per cent through February of that year.
The big winners for the month were China-focused
Following a challenging start to the year, CTA Indices showed signs of improvement with over half of trend constituents in positive territory in February. The SG CTA Index was up by 0.42 per cent, whilst the SG Trend Index was up by 0.81 per cent.
Short term strategies struggled and underperformed other strategies, with the SG STTI down by -1.19 per cent for the month.
The SG Trend Indicator attributed February’s positive results to gains in currencies and a selection of commodity markets, as well as trends in interest rate markets. Long positions in bond markets reverted slightly, leading
Aspect Capital (Aspect), a USD6.9 billion systematic investment manager, has launched a new Cayman-domiciled fund that will provide investors with access to the Aspect Systematic Global Macro Programme.
The Programme utilises a systematic relative value approach to global fixed income, stock indices, volatility and currency markets. It aims to generate absolute returns by managing a diversified portfolio to deliver low correlations to traditional and alternative asset classes, allocating its risk to over 25 individual models spread across 13 macro-economic themes.
The Cayman fund has been seeded with USD100 million of external capital and will provide investors with an alternative
Europe’s sub-advised fund assets declined 7.6 per cent in Q4 2018, and 4 per cent for all of 2018, but the structural growth drivers remain intact and have added EUR7.6 billion net assets from new market entrants, according to new date from instiHub.
The final quarter of 2018 saw assets of sub-advised funds sold in EMEA drop by EUR48 billion to EUR581 billion as capital markets across the globe repriced. This is the first time during 2018 that total assets of 1,700 funds for which 152 sponsors across 15 European markets delegate investment services to 550 third party managers dropped
Electronic US Treasuries (UST) trading venue, LiquidityEdge, experienced record trading volumes during February 2019.
On February 28, participants traded over USD 31 billion (single count) across both on-the-runs and off-the-runs. It also experienced a record week last month, with USD 101 billion traded between 21-28 February.
The surge in activity was due to the treasury auctions, calendar rolls and the record number of unique participants benefiting from the directed, disclosed model championed by LiquidityEdge. The flexibility in its structure allows clients to choose between one-to-one or many-to-many models, facilitating a combination of anonymous and/or disclosed streaming executable prices creating a bespoke
The Multi-Strategy Fund of Funds (FoHF) PCAM Select, which was launched in August 2018 with approximately USD60 million, has recently surpassed USD100 million assets under management (AUM).
At the end of February 2019, PCAM Select reported more than USD140 million in AUM. The fund continues to accept further investors. It is the successor to the highly successful PCAM Blue Chip Ltd, which was launched in 2007 and stopped accepting new funds at the end of 2017 after reaching an investment volume (AUM) of around USD850 million.
“PCAM Select is attracting a great deal of interest from institutional investors,” says
Trium Capital, a London-based alternative investment specialist, has partnered with New York based Chesapeake Asset Management (CAM) to offer a global equity fund – The Trium Chesapeake Global Equity UCITS Fund – which launched last month.
The fund’s global, nimble approach allows the portfolio manager to dynamically shift focus to areas where opportunity is greatest at any given time. It uses top-down country and industry research, as well as fundamental analysis to identify companies facing multi-year opportunities – or threats – that go beyond normal cyclical fluctuations. The portfolio is actively managed with a heavy emphasis on risk management and
