Funds
Calamos Investments has launched two new mutual funds, the Calamos Global Convertible Fund and the Calamos Hedged Equity Income Fund as of 31 December, 2014.
"These new funds are a logical extension of our product suite, leveraging the core competencies of the firm. We have managed global convertible strategies for institutional clients for 20 years, and have managed US convertibles for more than 35 years. Additionally, we were an early leader in the liquid alternatives space launching one of the first liquid alternatives mutual funds in the early 1990s," says John Calamos, Sr, Chief Executive Officer and Global Co-Chief Investment
December was a volatile month across asset classes, with a sell-off in risky assets occurring mid-month before some losses were recovered by month-end, according to GAM.
The MSCI World index ended the month down 1.6%, while the Barclays Global Aggregate Bond index declined 0.7%. Credit, as measured by the iBoxx Liquid High Yield index, was down over 4% through mid-December, before rallying to end the month at -1.0%. This volatility across asset classes proved challenging for active managers. Hedge funds ended the month down 0.8%, as measured by the HFRX Global Hedge Fund index. Global macro was the only positively
Hollis Park Partners, a global structured products investment management firm, has formed a strategic partnership with alternative investment manager GCM Grosvenor.
Hollis Park, which will invest in a diverse range of structured products around the globe, launches with significant investment capital from GCM Grosvenor and other institutional investors.
"We believe today's environment presents attractive and rapidly changing opportunities across a wide spectrum of structured products including Agency and Non-Agency mortgage-backed securities, CLOs, CMBS and asset-backed securities, and we will seek to dynamically allocate capital across a number of strategies," says Troy Dixon, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner of Hollis
Aeon Funds, a family of alternative investment funds, has launched the Aeon Fiber Opportunity Fund LP.
The fund’s structure complements the Aeon Multi Opportunity Fund which focuses on Pre-IPO investments in the most notable VC backed technology companies in the world today.
Aeon Funds has expanded its management team and commenced fundraising for this exciting new addition to the Aeon family. The Aeon Fiber Opportunity Fund will initially invest in the installation of military grade fibre-optic cable in gated communities throughout the US Southeast. As a significant validator of the market opportunity, Aeon management estimates there are approximately 35,000 communities
Trading activity at CBOE Holdings reached new all-time highs in total volume and average daily volume (ADV) in 2014.
CBOE Holdings consolidated trading volume for options contracts on Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and C2 Options ExchangeSM (C2SM) and futures contracts on CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) totalled 1.3 billion contracts, an increase of 12 per cent over the 1.2 billion contracts in 2013. Average daily volume was 5.3 million contracts, an increase of 12 per cent from the 4.7 million contracts per day in 2013.
New records for annual total volume and average daily volume were also set at
Singapore Exchange (SGX) derivatives trading hit records in December and the whole of 2014, while securities activities grew in December but declined overall during the last year.
Total securities trading value was USD22 billion, up 8.2% from a year earlier; average daily trading value was USD983 million, up 3.4%. December 2014 had one more trading day than December 2013.
New companies listed totalled seven, raising USD583 million compared with 1 raising USD6.1 billion a year earlier. Bond listings totalled 28 raising USD8 billion. This was 36% up from the amount raised a year earlier.
Derivatives volume was a record
During the last two weeks of December, hedge funds erased the bulk of the losses recorded earlier in December, when risk aversion was elevated, according to Lyxor.
CTAs were again the best performers, in a remake of the patterns observed throughout the year (+4.7%from 16 December to 30 December). The good news came from Event Driven managers, up +3.1% during the same period. Yet, December was overall a mixed month, the Lyxor Hedge Fund Index being down 0.2% on the back of the underperformance of Fixed Income strategies (-3.1%). Their poor showing was related to the sharp high yield spread
With As the first AIFMD reporting deadline for many managers of Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) looming large on 30 January 2015, firms may turn to outsourcing to meet their obligations.
A survey conducted by the Financial Services team of Moore Stephens highlighted that only half of AIFMs are fully aware of the Annex IV reporting requirements applicable to them and the timetable for submission, with a further 42% being somewhat aware but unsure of the information required. Almost 35% of AIFMs surveyed stated that they were not prepared for the actual reporting process.
Moore Stephens believes that the lack
Just one of IndexIQ’s proprietary family of hedge fund replication and alternative beta indexes recorded positive performance in December.
The IQ Hedge Global Macro Beta Index returned 0.79% for the month while the other six indexes all saw negative returns.
The IQ Hedge Event-Driven Beta Index was the worst performer with a return of -1.52%, followed by the IQ Hedge Emerging Markets Beta Index (-1.06%), the IQ Hedge Long/Short Beta Index (-0.94%), the IQ Hedge Composite Beta Index (-0.62%), the IQ Hedge Fixed Income Arbitrage Beta Index (-0.53%) and the IQ Hedge Fixed Income Arbitrage Beta Index (-0.47%).
Designed as
The amount of catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities (ILS) issued reached a record level in 2014, according to Artemis.bm.
Artemis.bm recorded USD8.8 billion of new catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities issuance in 2014 in its Deal Directory, the highest level recorded in a single year since the cat bond and ILS market emerged in the mid-1990's. Artemis has published a new market report providing details on this issuance.
As well as achieving a new annual record for issuance of new catastrophe bond and ILS risk capital, the outstanding market of in-force cat bond and ILS transactions reached another new record,
