Funds
The past week has been adverse for global macro and CTA hedge fund strategies, according to Lyxor’s latest Weekly Brief.
This has taken place in the context of the announcement of general elections in the UK, which translated into trend reversals across UK assets.
Higher risk aversion in Europe ahead of the French presidential election also played a role.
Both strategies maintain sizeable long European equity exposures while some macro managers are also short European fixed income. Yet, the likelihood that Macron will win with a comfortable margin at the runoff on 7 May is supportive for both
Total hedge fund industry capital increased to a third consecutive quarterly record in the first quarter of 2017, as investors increased allocations to event driven and quantitative, trend-following systematic macro strategies.
Industry assets ended Q1 2017 at USD3.07 trillion, a quarterly increase of USD47.2 billion (1.6 per cent), according to the latest HFR Global Hedge Fund Industry Report, released by HFR.
In the trailing 12 months, total hedge fund capital has increased by 7.3 per cent.
The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index (FWC) rose 2.4 per cent in Q1 2017 led by equity hedge strategies, while the HFRI
Man Group has reported what it describes as strong performance for the first quarter of 2017 with funds under management (FUM) totalling USD88.7 billion at 31 March 2017, up from USD80.9 billion at the end of December 2016.
Net inflows in the quarter totalled USD3.0 billion, driven by strong inflows into discretionary long only and fund of fund alternatives, while the company also saw positive investment movement of USD2.2 billion in the quarter.
Positive FX movements of USD0.8 billion in the first three months of the year quarter were driven primarily by the weakening of the US Dollar against
Conway Investment Research has acquired operational control of the Guggenheim Alternatives Platform from GP Feeder Fund Management.
The platform, which provides qualified investors access to global alternative investment solutions, is now known as the Conway Alternatives Platform.
Conway is a St Louis-based registered investment adviser which provides customised investment research and solutions to its clients including multi-family offices, wealth management groups, trust companies, financial planning firms, endowments and foundations. The firm was established by a team of investment professionals to offer capital markets research, dynamic asset allocation modelling as well as due diligence and monitoring of top money managers
Abacus Group, a provider of hosted cloud IT solutions for alternative asset funds, added 25 new clients in the first quarter of 2017, including a large institutional investor with multiple offices in the US, UK and Asia.
During the quarter, Abacus doubled its revenues as compared to the last quarter of 2016.
“The growth of Abacus in the alternative asset management space continues at a rapid pace,” says CEO Chris Grandi (pictured). “During the past quarter, we expanded our new data centres in London and in Dallas, increasing our data processing capabilities and capacity to meet the analytic demands
More than seven in 10 (73 per cent) institutional investors believe Brexit will be “hard”, including 29 per cent who believe it will be “very hard”, research by asset management group Managing Partners Group (MPG) reveals.
More than four out of five (82 per cent) also believe the number of UK-based financial services firms generally seeking to establish subsidiaries in the European Union will increase over the next three years due to Brexit.
While 44 per cent believe that UK asset managers specifically will probably get to passport their funds into the EU after Brexit, around 30 per cent
As 2017 unfolds hedge funds are facing erratic asset growth, passive investments are grabbing attention and assets, redemptions are making headlines, fees are under pressure and performance is only just beginning to show signs of life, all amid fierce competition.
“The USD3 trillion world of hedge funds is being pushed and pulled into a marketing environment unlike anything it has seen before,” says Kyle Dunn (pictured), founder and CEO of Meyler Capital, an integrated capital-raising and marketing services company for hedge funds, PE funds and other alternative investment firms.
“Old tools, old instincts don’t work,” says Dunn. “Today’s focus
Investoo Group, one of the world’s biggest FX affiliates, has acquired 100ForexBrokers.com in what is the group’s largest acquisition to date.
100ForexBrokers.com, launched in 2012, is one of the world’s biggest Forex broker comparison sites with 60,000+ unique visitors per month and 100s of real user reviews.
Adam Grunwerg, CEO of Investoo Group, says: “This acquisition generates a huge boost to our company revenues and user base. 100ForexBrokers.com is already one of the world’s biggest Forex broker comparison websites. We aim to capitalise on the 100ForexBrokers.com acquisition by improving its existing commercial arrangements, adding new languages and launching a
Hedge funds proved resilient during last week, most strategies being positive despite political and geopolitical stress including tensions between the US and North Korea.
CTA funds were the downside exception, dragged by their long in equities and shorts in energy.
Merger funds, on the upside, were boosted by the end of the legal battle over the Abbott acquisition of Alere, and by the bidding war over the generic drugs producer Stada.
Funds at Lyxor did not meaningfully alter their positions this week. CTAs remain long equities, macro funds keep limited and relative exposures, L/S equity US funds are
The hedge fund industry continued its positive start to the year with another month of gains in March with the Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark recording returns of 0.68 per cent through the month, building on gains of 1.01 per cent and 1.46 per cent in February and January, respectively.
Q1 2017 performance now stands at 3.18 per cent, which marks the best opening quarter performance since 2013, as hedge funds sustained their recent strong performance. With just one month of losses recorded since February 2016, the industry has now returned 11.61 per cent over a 12-month period.
Event driven
