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For investors in Asian hedge funds, it was China and not the region's hottest major market, Japan, that provided the best bang for the buck in 2013 – a result set to ensure greater capital inflows into steadily growing China-focused funds as reported by Reuters.
Scoring with heavy bets on Internet, tech and casino stocks, hedge funds investing in the Greater China region gained an average 20 per cent last year compared to a flat MSCI China index, their best showing in five years.
By contrast, Japan-focused equity funds gained an average 26 per cent last year, data from Eurekahedge showed, lagging a 29 per cent rise in the
Hedge funds gained 1.23 per cent in December, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
The index gained 11.21 per cent in 2013.
“The US Fed announced in December that it would reduce Quantitative Easing purchases from USD85bn to USD75bn per month, and assured market participants that until certain growth rates and unemployment levels were achieved, interest rates would remain low,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. “Equity prices in the US and Europe rallied on the news and the S&P 500 reached a record high on the final trading day of the year."
IndexIQ saw assets under management jump 37 per cent in 2013 to USD1.125bn, driven in part by its IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (QAI).
QAI, the first hedge fund-style ETF and the industry’s largest alternative exchange-traded fund, more than doubled in size during the period, ending the year with nearly USD630m in assets.
In addition, IndexIQ continued to invest in its future growth during the year, expanding the sales force to include two new external wholesalers, covering the western and eastern territories, and bringing three new internal wholesalers on board.
“We are pleased to see our education-focused approach
Rob Smith, Manager of the German Growth Trust at Barings, comments on the latest GDP figures from Germany…
When it comes to Germany, given the huge trade flows that influence the GDP numbers, it would not be advisable to extrapolate a trend from just a couple of quarters.
All other things being equal, GDP will be negatively influenced by an increase in imports exceeding the movement in exports, which is what we have seen in the last two quarters. This has resulted in an overall negative drag effect for the year as a whole.
Given that Germany imports many raw
Hedge fund and asset management technology provider HedgeGuard has launched its UK business as it begins the rollout of a new cloud technology platform and international expansion.
HedgeGuard’s software is designed to reduce costs across the asset management industry and provide cloud-based front-to-back office ‘intelligence’ for all clients on any device.
Already active in the French market, HedgeGuard’s software is designed to be user-friendly. It has adapted to increased volatility and regulation on behalf of its existing clients, with the reporting, risk and compliance modules that managers increasingly need.
Designed by hedge fund managers for hedge fund managers, HedgeGuard’s
The board of directors of ALTIN has decided to link its capital reduction policy directly to share price performance.
When share price appreciation is satisfactory, the board considers that indiscriminate capital reductions are not in the best long-term interests of the majority of shareholders and of the company.
In the future and so long as the discount does not narrow significantly, capital will be returned to compensate investors when share price performance falls below a 10 per cent to 12 per cent target. Such capital reductions will be conducted exclusively through the repurchase of own shares.
The board
BCS, the largest trader of equities and FX on the Russian exchange, has appointed John Barker as executive chairman of BCS Financial Group (BCS) in London.
Barker (pictured) took up his new role at BCS in January 2014.
Barker brings more than 20 years of management experience in the financial market to the firm. He was formerly the managing director and head of international at Liquidnet Europe. He has also held various senior positions at Instinet Global Services, including director of operations, head of trade support and managing the membership of multiple exchanges, clearing and settlement systems. During this
JTC Group, an independent provider of private client, fund and corporate services, has acquired a substantial book of private client business from Herald Trust Company Limited, which is no longer part of the Herald Group.
In addition to purchasing the client book, 27 Herald directors and staff based in Jersey have transferred to JTC Group’s St Helier offices, ensuring continuity of service for clients and securing a significant number of local jobs as part of the growth of the wider JTC Group.
Nigel Le Quesne (pictured), group chairman and CEO of JTC Group, says: “The purchase of this book
Having maintained world growth at acceptable levels throughout the current crisis, emerging Asia will become the world’s primary weak spot in 2014, says Saxo Bank, the online multi-asset trading and investment specialist.
According to the firm’s first quarterly insight for 2014, investment in that region has reached a staggering 43 per cent of GDP while growth has fallen to barely six per cent; the easy part of the growth cycle is long gone, and some emerging market governments are now proactively trying to slow their economies down.
This is not necessarily a bad thing for Asia, which needs to
Hedge funds in the US, UK and Singapore have signed agreements with Aztec Exchange to purchase invoices from suppliers in emerging markets and credit-constrained developed markets.
Through the agreement, these funds will buy the receivables from a variety of regions with short-term maturities (45-90 days), with average annualised yields around 20 per cent.
“Trade receivables are a unique investment proposition for fund managers as they can offer superior yields over other short-maturity assets. More importantly, our platform facilitates a ‘true sale’ of the invoices, which means the credit exposure is not with the supplier in the emerging market but
