Funds
Preqin has analyzed the performance of over 5,200 hedge funds worldwide throughout 2014 to identify the top performing funds. In an excerpt from the 2015 Preqin Global Hedge Fund Report, league tables reveal the 10 top performing hedge fund vehicles by various strategies and regions, and looks at the characteristics of these successful funds.
The data reveals that three-quarters of the 20 top performing hedge funds employed equity strategies. Other interesting findings include:
• Fifty-seven percent of all top performing funds in 2014 have been active for more than five years.
• Twenty-seven percent of all top performing funds in
Pioneer Underwriters (Pioneer) has launched a new EU regulatory compliant product for alternative investment fund managers (AIFMs).
This specialist product is aimed at AIFMs domiciled outside of the EU, which in addition to providing traditional financial lines cover, also ensures policyholders are compliant with the insurance provision requirement of the EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) which came into force in July 2013.
Pioneer believes that this is the market’s first solution addressing the needs of non EU domiciled fund managers and forms part of a suite of products covering the specialist risks faced by a wide range
FTSE Group has expanded of its established FTSE Infrastructure Index Series with the launch of two capped indices to complement the FTSE Core Infrastructure Indices
The new indices are: the FTSE Global Core Infrastructure Capped 50/50 Index and the FTSE Developed Core Infrastructure Capped 50/50 Index.
These capped versions of the infrastructure indices adjust the exposure of certain infrastructure sub-sectors, whilst still representing the developed and global universes of companies included in the FTSE Core Infrastructure Indices.
The expansion of the index series is in response to increased interest in this relatively young asset class, led by institutional investors diversifying
Euronext is to launch a new premium milling wheat no3 contract, subject to final regulatory approval, at the beginning of March 2015.
Based on premium specifications, this new contract consolidates Euronext’s expertise in milling wheat and is fully adapted to the needs of stakeholders in the agrifood industry, providing a higher quality contract available for trading from September 2015.
The launch of the new premium milling wheat contract no. 3 is aimed at strengthening Euronext’s offering in one of its flagship products, now a benchmark for the wheat industry in Europe. Developed in partnership with industry requirements as expressed
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is extending the deadline for public comment on related applications submitted by LedgerX for registration as a derivatives clearing organisation and registration as a swap execution facility.
The original comment period ended on 30 January, 2015, but due to commenters requesting additional time, the CFTC is extending the deadline to Feb. 20, 2015. LedgerX plans to list and clear fully collateralised, physically settled options on bitcoins.
Comments may be submitted electronically through the CFTC’s Comments Online process. All comments received will be posted on the CFTC website.
Liquid Holdings has launched LiquidMobile, a web-based app that allows hedge funds to manage portfolio and risk analysis and reporting across multiple funds on a mobile device in real-time.
LiquidMobile is engineered for fluidity from the desktop to any mobile device, giving fund managers the ability to easily interact with historical, real-time, and forward-looking P&L, performance, market and liquidity risk, and NAV-light calculations. With mobile-optimised dashboards to monitor investments and investor relationships on the go, LiquidMobileSM represents a major step forward for the hedge fund industry, which today faces rising pressures across transparency, regulations and operating costs.
"Fund managers
January was a volatile month across asset classes, proving challenging for many hedge fund investors although most global macro investors were rewarded, with the HFRX Macro/CTA index up 2.0%.
Important asset class moves reflected expectations of slowing global growth, including strong rallies in US, UK and European bonds, oil down over 7%, and equities negative. The MSCI World index fell by 1.8% while the US S&P 500 index lost 3.0% in US dollar terms. Europe proved a notable exception with European equities strongly positive in local currency terms.
The key issues for investors in January largely centred around quantitative
The January 2015 average daily transaction value on the Euronext cash order book stood at EUR8,630 million (+31% compared to January 2014).
In January 2015, the average daily volumes on equity index derivatives were significantly up at 298,375 contracts (+12% compared with January 2014), while the average daily volume on individual equity derivatives was down at 240,899 contracts (-19% compared with January 2014).
The activity on commodity derivatives remained strong in January with an average daily volume at 53,653 contracts traded, up 7% when compared to January 2014.
Euronext had two new listings in January. EUR7,562 million of follow-on equity
Over 70% of real estate firms surveyed by Preqin at the end of 2014 felt competition for both investment opportunities and sources of capital had increased over the past year. Preqin’s Head of Real Assets Products, Andrew Moylan, assesses the increasingly competitive landscape facing private real estate fund managers:
There are many challenges currently facing both fund managers and investors active in the private real estate space. The improving fortunes of the private real estate industry in recent years – the industry now manages an all-time high of USD742bn in assets and generated annualised returns of 16.7% over the last
GMEX Group has acquired a 25% stake, through its GMEX Technologies (GMEX TECH) subsidiary, in the Mauritius-based ALTX Africa Group Ltd (ALTX).
ALTX wholly owns ALT-Xchange Ltd (ALTX Uganda) and ALT-X Clearing Ltd (ALTX Clearing). ALTX is also in discussions with other strategic partners with a view to syndicating additional equity stakes to further drive its growth strategy.
This acquisition extends the current successful partnership between GMEX TECH, and ALTX. GMEX TECH is providing its leading edge ForumMatch exchange trading platform, ForumDetect market surveillance system and ForumTrader workstation to ALTX Uganda as a fully managed "Exchange-in-a-box" hosted solution interconnecting ALTX
