Funds
The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index was up +0.7% in March. Six out of 12 Lyxor Indices ended the month in positive territory, led by the Lyxor CTA Long Term Index (+3.8%), the Lyxor LS Equity Long Bias Index (+2.4%), and the Lyxor LS Equity Variable Bias Index (+1.1%).
ECB’s purchases started beginning of March, and will crowd investors out of the sovereign market. Signs of distortions already emerged in yield curves. Meanwhile flows toward Eurozone continued to boost risky assets, which were little harmed by the Greek saga. US markets continued to lag with further signs of a cyclical downturn.
Credibility Capital, a marketplace lender focused on prime credit small business borrowers, has launched its online lending platform at www.CredibilityCapital.com.
New York-based company seeks to close a critical gap in small business lending, providing affordable financing solutions to businesses many of which are too small for traditional banks and are frequently pushed to more expensive financing solutions that are not commensurate with their credit profiles.
“We are filling a void in the small business financing landscape that took shape in 2008 with the pullback of bank lending,” says Brett Baris, President of Credibility Capital. “Because of our partnership model, we
Sciens Alternative Investments and PVE Capital have launched the PVE European Distressed Fund I, a closed ended fund that has invested in a portfolio of Italian Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) with a gross book value of EUR408m.
The portfolio of NPLs primarily comprise secured loans backed by Italian real estate.
PVE Capital is the originator of this deal, as well as being the asset manager of the NPL portfolio. PVE Capital is a European credit manager which has significant investment expertise in credit assets, ranging from traditional fundamental credit to the most esoteric structured credit. As of April 2015, PVE Capital
Following a strong Q1, hedge funds have kept performing as we move to the next quarter. The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index is up 0.4% over the week with all but one strategy closing the week positive. A disappointing job report for the month of March in the US was the main event of a rather quiet start to April.
Aquis Exchange is introducing a new order type – Market at Close (MaC) – that allows its Members to enter orders for matching on the Aquis Exchange platform at the closing price of the market-of-listing end-of-day auction.
This initiative is supported by a number of key asset management and brokerage firms.
MaC meets pre- and post-trade transparency requirements and, crucially, will not be subject to MiFID II restrictions for the use of reference price waivers. MaC has received approval from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. It will be offered at no additional cost to Aquis Exchange Members that are top-tier
SEI has launched SEI Firm Compliance, a new global regulatory management framework that equips investment organisations to oversee and orchestrate compliance functions firm-wide, across investment products and regulatory jurisdictions.
SEI’s Investment Manager Services (IMS) division developed the compliance framework as an add-on to the customised global operating platform it provides to its investment manager clients.
SEI’s offering takes a new approach in that it centralises an investment firm’s internal and outsourced compliance functions in a single management framework tailored to the user’s mix of business activities. SEI has incorporated the compliance framework into the Manager Dashboard of SEI’s global
Heptagon Capital has successfully completed the conversion of the Helicon Fund from an equity-hedge product to a global long-only equity by removing the index futures hedging overlay. The change is in response to client demand
Launched as the second product on Heptagon’s Irish UCITS platform in April 2011, the Helicon Fund now has an established four-year track record. The Fund has been managed in-house by two seasoned professionals with over thirty years of combined market experience in equities. Helicon’s focus has been on investing in a concentrated portfolio of high-quality equities with exposure to attractive long-term themes. These include growth
S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) has launched a new family of Global Inflation-Linked Sovereign Indices to effectively measure inflation-linked country debt within these classifications.
The launch of the S&P Global Sovereign Inflation-Linked Bond Indices is part of S&P DJI’s global initiative to expand its fixed income index offerings globally across more bond types.
The S&P Global Sovereign Inflation-Linked Bond Indices are broad, comprehensive, market value-weighted indices that seek to measure the performance of the inflation-linked securities market. The Indices are comprised of a universe of fixed rate, locally denominated inflation-linked sovereign debt publicly issued by governments in their domestic
There are some commodities that investors rarely overlook when building their exposure to the complex: gold and energy commodities being top of the list. Agricultural commodities just aren’t as popular.
This baffles people like Sal Gilbertie, president, CIO and co-founder of Teucrium Trading LLC, the only single commodity ETF provider in the US for corn, wheat, sugar and soybeans.
“People are shocked that in almost any 20-year period that you pick for the S&P 500 – sugar, soybeans, corn, wheat – are all often less correlated to the S&P 500 than gold. People tend to be under-represented on agriculturals because
The price of wheat and corn fell quite substantially last year, mainly on the back of strong planting and favourable weather. Between April and September, the price of corn futures fell from USD5.00 a bushel to USD3.30 a bushel. This year, as a result, US farmers have reduced their planting intentions.
“At the same time, the demand for corn, which is used in biofuels, may fall a little this year on the back of weak energy prices so there will be less need to put these biofuels into the energy mix,” comments Nitesh Shah (pictured), Research Analyst and Director at
