Managers
Hedge funds staged a fightback in April following a torrid first quarter for the industry, recording their biggest monthly gain since the 2008 global financial crisis, with strategies of various stripes successfully trading the recent stock market rebound and heightened oil market volatility.
New Hedge Fund Research data shows equity hedge, event driven, energy and basic materials, and activist-focused hedge fund strategies drove gains across the sector last month.
Looking ahead, the continuing volatility and uncertain macroeconomic backdrop now offers “dynamic opportunities” for hedge fund outperformance in 2020, HFR said.
The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index – a global equal-weighted
The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index, which provides a representative baseline for how the broad liquid alternative investment category performs, returned 3.01 per cent in April, outperforming the 2.88 per cent monthly return of the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index.
The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index family aims to deliver precise market measures for the performance of diversified liquid alternative investment strategies implemented through mutual fund structures, backed by a proprietary classification methodology.
“The markets recovered from a challenging March on the back of improved data surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and continued economic support from the federal government,” says Jason Schwarz,
Brummer & Partners, a long-running Swedish multi-strategy hedge fund firm, saw its flagship Brummer Multi-Strategy vehicle up marginally in April, as solid gains across its long/short credit, systematic equity, relative value and macro strategies were offset by sharp losses in tech-focused long/short equity trades.
CTAs and trend-following hedge fund strategies maintained their recent impressive momentum, profiting from continued trends across commodities and bond markets, new Société Générale data for April shows.
The hedge fund industry recorded USD33 billion of redemptions in Q1 according to HFR, making it the highest figure since the second quarter of 2009, as investors de-risked their portfolios. But this redemption figure could arguably be even higher come 30 June, as the full impact of Covid-19 becomes clearer.
Macro hedge fund, Reminiscent Capital (Reminiscent), has launched a Cayman Fund to enable broader access to its Asia Macro Master Strategy (Strategy). The Strategy, which is employed to construct a highly liquid portfolio centred around rates, FX and equities, was launched in February 2019 and has previously only been available to Australian investors via an Australian Unit Trust.
The strategy finished Q1 2020 up 16.5 per cent before fees, navigating the recent market turmoil successfully and significantly outperforming the HFRI Macro Discretionary Thematic Index YTD and since inception.
The focus of the fund in investing only in liquid products and its
EEX Group has reported a 46 per cent increase in European power derivatives trading volume in April, largely driven by consistent growth in the Germany Phelix-DE futures and the strong performance of the French (+152 per cent trading volume y-o-y), Spanish (+140 per cent y-o-y) and Hungarian (+256 per cent y-o-y) power futures. The Hungarian power futures continued its positive development, making Hungary now the fourth largest power market in terms of traded volume on EEX’s European power derivatives platform, behind Germany, Italy and France.
On the Austrian, French and German Intraday power markets, flexibility products, namely 15 minute and 30
Long-term investment specialists Inbhear Fund Service and Inbhear Management Services have been acquired by SANNE, a provider of alternative asset and corporate business services.
The advent of negative prices for the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil benchmark will further squeeze growth and investment in the Permian basin, potentially heralding a sharp slide in US natural gas exports, according to Horseman Capital Management.
The London-based contrarian long/short hedge fund firm led by Russell Clark believes US exports of liquefied natural gas are likely to fall, “potentially precipitously”, in the current trading environment – a knock-on effect of lower US oil production.
“If I was a US LNG exporter, I would listen to the Noel Gallagher song ‘Gas Panic’,” Clark said in a note on
Commodities markets are often viewed predominantly through the narrow lens of energy markets, with the recent dramatic oil price volatility garnering front page headlines, bringing hefty gains for several hedge fund strategies amid the turmoil.
