Funds
PEGAS, the pan-European gas trading platform operated by Powernext, registered a total volume of 156.0 TWh in May 2018 which represented a year-to-year growth of 11 per cent (May 2017: 140.7 TWh).
The Dutch delivery zone TTF remained the dominant hub on PEGAS with an overall volume of 89.6 TWh, followed by the German NCG and Gaspool hubs with a total of 30.1 TWh. The Austrian CEGH VTP market area had a strong showing with 11.1 TWh, including 4.8 TWh on the derivatives segment, making it again the most liquid hub behind the TTF on the curve.
Spot trading
Hedge funds were overall flat this week, emphasising their appealing profile in the current environment, according to the latest weekly brief from Lyxor’s Cross Asset Research team.
The Italian stress mainly hurt CTAs, hit in their long bonds. L/S Equity funds also suffered from derisking, in line with their cautious exposure. By contrast, Event Driven, away from the epicentre, proved resilient.
Markets will have to go on dealing with multiple uncertainties, including concerns about the continued integration of the eurozone, trade fears, a potential revival of risk linked to Iran later in the year, disappointing economic data everywhere apart
RM Funds has announced the launch of the VT RM Alternative Income Fund (RMAI), an actively managed open-ended fund investing in defensive, income producing alternative assets.
Pietro Nicholls (pictured), Principal – Investment Manager of RM Funds, explains that the firm was launched in 2010 and spent the first half of its life as RM Capital Markets, an agency trading business in corporate credit.
A subsequent seeding two and a half years ago of USD50 million by an institutional investor pushed the company on its evolution into RM Funds which now has USD150 million under management for largely institutional investors, such
Tages Capital, in partnership with California-based Dalton Investments, has launched the Tages Dalton Global Emerging Markets UCITS Fund, bringing the firm’s alternative UCITS range to five, and providing UCITS investors with another differentiated hedge fund strategy.
The Tages Dalton Fund offers investors access to Dalton’s extensive expertise in emerging markets within UCITS guidelines in a long/short format. The fund launched in mid-May and has already garnered nearly USD50 million of institutional capital.
Dalton Investments LLC is a value-focused investment management firm with expertise in Asia, emerging markets, equities and fixed income. Headquartered in Los Angeles, with a subsidiary office
ETF data provider ETFGI reported today that assets invested in the global ETF/ETP industry extended their lead over assets invested in the global hedge fund industry to USD1.70 trillion at the end of Q1 2018, an increase of 4.91 per cent over the gap at the end of Q4 2017.
The firm reports there was a record USD4.92 trillion invested in 7,389 ETFs/ETPs listed globally at the end of March 201, against a record USD3.22 trillion invested in 8,379 hedge funds globally at the end of March 2018.
The firm says that 1.74 per cent growth in assets invested
Distressed debt hedge funds continued to be the best performing strategy on a year-to-date basis, supported by the high yield and leveraged loans market performance during the month on the back of improving risk appetite and lower volatility levels.
That’s according to new analysis released by EurekaHedge, which also reveals that on a year-to-date basis, arbitrage fund managers remained underwater as the performance-based gains they made in April weren’t enough to offset the losses incurred in the volatile market in February this year.
EurekaHedge also highlights that more hedge funds opened than closed for the first four months of
Asia Pacific Exchange (APEX), a new derivatives exchange and clearinghouse, based in Singapore, has gone live with core functions operating on technology from the Cinnober Group.
APEX’s independent clearinghouse, Asia Pacific Clear Pte Ltd, runs on Cinnober’s TRADExpress RealTime Clearing, a comprehensive real-time clearing system for OTC and exchange-traded markets. Irisium, a subsidiary within the Cinnober Group and leading provider of market surveillance and analytical software for financial organisations, provides APEX’s market surveillance system. Using Irisium’s platform, APEX will be able to identify in real time and investigate manipulative and suspicious trading behaviours.
The first contract to trade on
Hedge fund investors held their ground in March 2018, according to the Barclay Fund Flow Indicator, even as the equity market correction entered its second month. Industry assets climbed to an all-time high of USD3.0 trillion.
Data drawn from more than 5,000 hedge funds in the BarclayHedge database estimated that the hedge fund industry, exclusive of CTAs, added USD6.1 billion (0.2 per cent of assets) in March, down 64.0 per cent from February. Hedge funds have added assets in 10 of the past 12 months, according to the Barclay Fund Flow Indicator, a monthly big-picture report on the health of
AGF Management, with USD37 billion under management, has completed its acquisition of 100 per cent of FFCM, to further strengthen their quantitative investing and ETF platform brought to market under the AGFiQ banner.
“Today, we further build on our strategic plan to diversify across the investment spectrum,” says Judy Goldring, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, AGF. “Through organic growth and acquisition, we have been able to launch new platforms and develop innovative products.”
The firm writes that in November 2015, AGF acquired the majority of the equity of FFCM, a Boston-based boutique asset manager and ETF strategist
Hedge funds globally have allocated at least USD59 billion to responsible investment (RI), according to a survey by the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) and the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit (CAIS).
The survey of 80 asset managers with USD550 billion in hedge fund assets under management (AUM) provides evidence of an increasing level of demand for RI across the hedge fund industry.
Around 40 per cent of the respondents said they are already investing using responsible investment principles, with total assets in such investments worth USD59 billion – a little over 10 per cent of the respondents’ combined hedge
