Managers
Hedge funds were up 1.25 per cent in April, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The Index has gained 3.82 per cent year to date.
“Rising stock prices provided the tailwind for equity hedge funds in April,” says Sol Waksman (pictured), founder and president of BarclayHedge. “Additionally, a rally in US high yield bonds coupled with a sell-off in high grade bonds caused credit spreads to tighten, which helped boost returns for fixed income funds.”
Overall, 14 of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indices had gains in April. The Emerging Markets Index jumped 5.13 per cent, Pacific
In an extract from the recently launched 2015 Preqin Sovereign Wealth Fund Review, Lauren Mason, Amy Bensted and Oliver Senchal provide an insight into this secretive and exclusive subset of the investor community.
Sovereign wealth funds, despite being small in number and secretive in nature, continue to capture attention as a result of their ever growing assets under management and corresponding influence on global financial markets. Today, the total assets of sovereign wealth funds top USD6.31tn (Fig 1), more than double the capital these entities represented in 2008, the year Preqin launched its first Sovereign Wealth Fund Review.
Investing
Docupace Technologies is joining with computer security services company Security Snapshot to deliver cyber-security solutions for financial services firms.
Docupace provides a secure, SEC/FINRA-compliant and paperless straight-through processing platform.
By working with broker-dealers and registered investment advisors (RIAs) on cyber-security, Security Snapshot will connect Docupace’s secure infrastructure and workflow systems with processes that help ensure organisations are compliant with SEC, FINRA, and other federal, state, and self-regulatory organisations’ policies, procedures and regulations. Docupace and Security Snapshot expect to implement their new relationship in phases to best ensure smooth and efficient adoption by clients.
“Docupace is dedicated to providing high quality,
The Irish Funds Industry Association (IFIA), the trade body representing the largest sector of the financial services industry in Ireland, has responded positively to the European Commission’s Green Paper on Capital Markets Union (CMU).
CMU is a project to build a genuine single market for capital in the EU by 2019. The CMU forms part of the Commission’s “growth and jobs” agenda with the aim of promoting investment in Europe’s economy and is not intended to be a regulatory driven initiative. The intention is to address Europe’s overreliance on bank credit by boosting investment via capital markets which should result
Hedge funds investing in China surged to a record monthly gain in April, as trading volume on the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program soared and the Chinese Central Bank reduced interest rates.
The HFRI China Index was up +13.0 per cent in April, the strongest monthly gain since Index inception in 2008.
Total global capital invested in the Asian hedge fund industry surpassed the milestone of USD120 billion (USD120.75 billion, RMB750 billon, JPY14.5 trillion) to begin Q2 2015, as the number of Asian hedge funds approached 1,200, according to the latest HFR Asian Hedge Fund Industry Report, released today by
The challenging conditions experienced during April, particularly the last week of the month, saw all of the managed futures indices calculated by Societe Generale Prime Services post negative performance, ending a strong run of performance enjoyed so far during 2015.
Despite the negative returns over the month, all Newedge CTA indices remain positive for the year-to-date 2015. The Newedge Trend Index continues to lead performance up 3.32 per cent YTD, after returning -3.91 per cent in April.
The Newedge Short Term Traders Index was the least affected by conditions in April, declining 2.11 per cent, keeping YTD performance at
The equity and bond market selloff that took place recently took its toll on some hedge fund strategies. Due to their long fixed income stance established during 2014, CTAs sharply underperformed Macro managers during the market rout. Meanwhile, macro managers that had built up short positions on European rates in April proved overall resilient. Some macro managers were up 2 per cent last week while others, who were most exposed to European equities were down 1 per cent. In the CTA space, losses were broad based and reached high single digits in some cases.
FolioMetrix is to merge with American Independence Financial Services, LLC (AIF) to create a new company, RiskX Investments, LLC, offering an array of risk-intelligent investment solutions.
The transaction is expected to close in September 2015. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
RiskX Investments will manage, post-merger, approximately USD1.1 billion in funds and separately managed accounts, comprised of the American Independence Funds (single-manager sub-advised funds and separately managed accounts) and the FolioMetrix Rx Fund Series (multi-strategy tactical mutual funds).
American Independence Funds offer exposure to select sub-advisors of equity, fixed income, international, and risked-managed portfolios. The AIF management team
International Capital Flows, a report commissioned by the States of Guernsey and supported by Guernsey Finance, has analysed the economic benefits provided to the UK and Europe by the Guernsey funds market.
The majority of the inward investment is deployed into long-term tangible assets, including private equity, infrastructure and commercial property. All of these asset classes can provide economic and social benefits to the UK.
The report estimates that European investment managers earn GBP1.8bn of fees from managing Guernsey funds, of which GBP1.1bn is earned by those in the UK. UK investors, such as pension funds, also benefit from using
RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM) has added the RBC Funds (Lux) – Emerging Markets Value Equity Fund, RBC Funds (Lux) – Emerging Markets Small Cap Equity Fund and RBC Funds (Lux) – European Equity Focus Fund to its Luxembourg-domiciled SICAV range, RBC Funds (Lux).
The new sub-funds are sub-advised by RBC Global Asset Management (UK) Limited and are managed by the asset manager’s London-based investment teams.
RBC Funds (Lux) – Emerging Markets Value Equity Fund; managed by Laurence Bensafi, Deputy Head Emerging Market Equities & Senior Portfolio Manager. The sub-fund will provide investors exposure to a diversified portfolio
