Funds
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has barred two Buffalo-based brokers – Timothy S Dembski and Walter F Grenda – from the securities industry for fraud in connection with the sale of a hedge fund, the Prestige Wealth Management Fund.
Dembski and Grenda’s misconduct occurred while they were employed with Mid Atlantic Capital Corporation.
FINRA’s investigation found that Dembski and Grenda made material misrepresentations and omissions to lead investors to believe that the hedge fund was a “growth” fund that would be based on a computer algorithm that automatically included risk protections and stop-losses to limit losses in the
The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index was down 0.9 per cent in January, despite positive performance from five out of the 11 Lyxor Indices, according to Lyxor’s latest Alternative Investment Industry Barometer.
The Lyxor CTA Long Term Index (+2.2 per cent), the Lyxor Global Macro Index (+0.7 per cent), and the Lyxor Fixed Income Arbitrage Index (+0.7 per cent) were the month’s best performers.
Hedge Funds displayed remarkable resilience in January. Both markets and analysts started the year with reasonable growth expectations. These were aggressively revised down, triggered by the release of the disappointing Chinese PMI and the CNY depreciation.
Two out six of IndexIQ’s proprietary family of hedge fund replication and alternative beta indices recorded positive performance in January.
The IQ Hedge Market Neutral Index led the way with a return of 0.33 per cent followed by the IQ Merger Arbitrage Index at 0.13 per cent.
The month’s biggest loser was the IQ Hedge Long/Short Index which was down 2.83 per cent for the month, while the IQ Hedge Event Driven Index (-2.42 per cent), the IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Index (-1.13 per cent), and the IQ Hedge Global Macro Index (-1.03 per cent), also finished the month in negative territory.
The gross return of the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index for January 2016 measured -2.86 per cent. Hedge fund flows as measured by the SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index advanced 0.66 per cent in February.
"SS&C GlobeOp's Capital Movement Index rose 0.66 per cent for February 2016 after a decline of -3.28 per cent in January of 2016," says Bill Stone (pictured), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SS&C Technologies. "This improvement is very much in line with normal seasonal patterns. In fact, the 0.66 per cent gain for February 2016 is almost identical to the year ago gain of
US private equity and real estate groups are paying close attention to the opportunities on offer in Ireland to pick up distressed assets, as the ripples of the '08 financial crisis continue to be felt there. Whether they are buying actual assets, or the debt that is held on those assets, depends on what the individual manager is trying to achieve but as Nicholas Tsafos, Chairman and Director of EisnerAmper Global Ltd, observes: "Whether it is commercial real estate or retail real estate, we are seeing managers invest in a variety of property portfolios, buying landmark properties such as the
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has welcomed the common approach adopted by the European Commission and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on the equivalence of central counterparty (CCP) regimes.
ESMA Sees this as an important step towards market participants being able to use clearing infrastructures in both the US and Europe, and for the proper functioning of the global derivatives markets.
Once the equivalence decision by the European Commission on the US regime for CFTC-supervised CCPs is adopted, ESMA will rapidly resume the recognition process of specific CFTC-supervised US CCPs that had applied to ESMA
Parametric Portfolio Associates has added a new Liquid Alternative strategy to its suite of Volatility Risk Premium (VRP) strategies.
The Parametric Liquid Alternative strategy is designed to provide investors with a diversifying risk premium that targets risk-adjusted returns similar to many hedge funds. The strategy employs a mix of fully collateralised S&P 500 Index options, creating an effective beta targeted by many hedge funds, but without the complicated structure, leverage, illiquidity or high fees typically associated with them.
The Parametric VRP strategies include a spectrum ranging from covered calls to cash-secured put selling, and include hybrid strategies which vary the
The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), the body responsible for ensuring the operational integrity of the Global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) System, has launched its data quality management program.
Based on a set of clearly defined criteria, the program allows the quality of the LEI data pool (the publicly available information on legal entities identifiable with an LEI) to be monitored, assessed and further optimised. The first monthly report, published today, reflects the very high level of data quality already achieved in the Global LEI System.
The LEI connects to key reference information that enables clear and unique
The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) has released a new guide to operational risk management for alternative asset management firms.
The AIMA Guide to Sound Practices for Operational Risk Management focuses on a wide variety of risks that could result in loss from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems or from external events.
This is the first time that AIMA has produced a Guide covering all aspects of operational risk. Previous AIMA guides have focused on certain features of this broad area including cyber security, valuation and business continuity management.
The new guide, which is available
A new financial platform is aiming to bridge the gap between simple words and complex investment strategy. For the first time, investors and traders can write down their ideas which are then analysed, optimised, converted into investment strategies and executed on a chosen trading platform.
The platform sits on the trading page of a bank or broker and is accessible via a simple Google-like text entry field that reads written words and makes suggestions for more rounded instructions.
An investor might write a simple request ; “Buy 100 shares of Google at market price” or a much more complex
