Latest News
SuMi TRUST Global Asset Services, a provider of operational and administration support services to institutional asset managers, has completed the enhancement of its Asian business.
SuMi TRUST has strengthened its operational and client service teams in all three centres with all asset servicing and client relationship activity for Japanese and Asian clients now being carried out from Tokyo, supported by the operational and administration centre in Dublin.
The Tokyo-based asset servicing team is composed of sales, dedicated client relationship management and experienced operations staff transferred from SuMi TRUST Dublin office.
“We are very pleased to have completed this
Hedge funds lost 0.44 per cent in July, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
The index remains up 3.26 per cent in 2014.
“European equity prices dropped due to weakening economic data, and US equity prices dropped based on a strengthening recovery,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. “It was a difficult month for equity funds hoping to turn a profit.”
Eleven of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indices had losses in July. The Barclay Healthcare & Biotechnology Index gave up 2.36 per cent, Technology lost 1.66 per cent, Equity Long Bias was
Tristan Thomas has joined Northern Trust’s alternatives group as director of portfolio strategy for hedge funds and Greg Jones has joined as a hedge fund analyst.
As director of portfolio strategy, Thomas is responsible for portfolio construction and monitoring of funds-of-funds and custom programmes and is a member of the team’s senior investment committee.
He joins from Mesirow Financial in Chicago, where he was responsible for the monitoring and sourcing of hedge fund strategies.
Jones is responsible for the sourcing, due diligence, and monitoring of macro, relative value, and commodity strategies across Northern Trust’s hedge fund programme, and
Arrow Capital Management has merged two fund which are sub-advised by Raven Rock Capital Management – the Arrow High Yield Fund and the Raven Rock Income II Fund.
The merging of the two funds eliminates the duplication of the investment similarities and improves the cost efficiencies.
Raven Rock is now able to focus on a single core investment strategy, which continues to be a unique offering in the Canadian fund universe. The Raven Rock Income II Fund combines hedged exposure to the US convertible bond market, as well as various other US corporate debt securities including high yield bonds. The ability
Trading in equity options on Euronext NV shares will start trading on the Amsterdam derivatives market on 28 August.
The new options will be listed in the Spotlight Options section, Euronext’s special segment dedicated to the development of new option classes requested by market participants. Spotlight Options give visibility to underlying assets such as newly listed stocks, SMEs and/or assets with notable market events or activity.
Through a combination of liquidity provider support and dedicated promotion by sponsoring brokers, underlying assets are put in the spotlight with short-term maturities options of one, two and three months.
These options
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued a no-action letter providing swap execution facilities (SEFs) time-limited, conditional relief from certain data reporting and record-keeping requirements in relation to confirmations required for uncleared swap transactions.
The no-action relief provided will expire at midnight (EDT) on 30 September 2015.
Commission regulation 37.6(b) requires a SEF to provide each counterparty to a transaction entered into on or pursuant to the rules of the SEF with a written record of all terms of the transaction, which supersedes any previous agreement and serves as the confirmation of the transaction.
The DMO
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued a time-limited no-action letter it will not take enforcement action against Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (CCIL) for failing to register as a derivatives clearing organisation (DCO).
The no-action relief is limited to CCIL’s clearing of Indian Rupee-denominated interest rate swaps and Indian Rupee-denominated forward rate agreements for the proprietary trades of US clearing members.
The no-action relief is effective until the earlier of 31 December 2014, or the date upon which the Commission either registers CCIL as a DCO under Section 5b(a) of the CEA or exempts CCIL from
Deutsche Börse has launched the HDAX Hedged USD Index, which measures the performance of the underlying HDAX while eliminating foreign currency fluctuations.
The HDAX Index measures all 110 stocks listed in the DAX, MDAX and TecDAX indices, representing more than 95 per cent of Germany’s free-float market capitalisation.
The HDAX Hedged USD Index can be used as an underlying for financial products or as a benchmark for active portfolios.
The HDAX Hedged USD Index combines the performance of the underlying index with a hypothetical, rolling investment into one-month foreign exchange forward contracts. By selling foreign exchange forward contracts,
Commodity funds on the whole, as represented by the Newedge Commodity Trading Index, suffered slightly negative performance during the month of July, posting a -0.65 per cent return compared to the 0.63 per cent return in June.
The Newedge Commodity Trading Index remains in positive territory for the year so far, with returns of 2.79 per cent YTD.
The Commodity Equity sub-index was hit with losses of 2.31 per cent, bringing the strong performance seen so far this year to a halt. The year-to-date performance continues to be positive (2.27 per cent), but is substantially lower than the 4.85
An anticipated rise in interest rates is accelerating the use of alternative investments by insurance general accounts, according to research from Cerulli Associates.


"Although they comprise a relatively small portion of total assets, large insurance companies have been known for their direct investments in private equity, real estate, and infrastructure," says Alexi Maravel, associate director at Cerulli.
"Much like other institutional investors, insurance chief investment officers and other investment professionals are using alternatives for diversification of investment risks, as well as seeking non-correlated sources of returns."


In their Insurance General Accounts: Opportunities in an Underserved Market report, Cerulli
Special Reports
FeatureD
- Insight
