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Commonfund, an institutional investment firm serving non-profits, pension funds and other institutional investors, has appointed current managing director Kristofer S Kwait as head of hedge fund research.
Kwait, a 12 year veteran of the firm, has had a significant influence on the hedge fund team. In addition to manager selection, he has also supervised the group's quantitative analytics team, a role which has been integral to the group's portfolio construction, quantitative due diligence and ongoing risk management processes.
“Since joining Commonfund, Kris has been instrumental in our ability to set a high standard in manager identification and selection, portfolio
Mariner Investment Group has named Jonathan Loflin, formerly a senior portfolio manager and partner of BlueMountain Capital, to run a global derivatives relative-value portfolio on the Mariner Incubation Platform.
The platform is a multi-strategy mandate Mariner launched in April 2013 to be managed by leading investment talent sourced from the hedge fund industry.
The announcement follows the firm's recent appointments of Peter van Dooijeweert to manage a global equity volatility portfolio, Richard Rumble to manage a global emerging market equity portfolio, and Eric Pellicciaro to manage a global macro portfolio on this new platform.
The Mariner team will
Five of IndexIQ’s family of six proprietary investible hedge fund replication and alternative beta indices recorded positive performance in November.
IQ Hedge Long/Short Beta Index led the way with a return of 1.82 per cent followed by IQ Hedge Event-Driven Beta Index (1.23 per cent), IQ Hedge Global Macro Beta Index (0.47 per cent), IQ Hedge Market Neutral Beta Index (0.21 per cent) and IQ Hedge Fixed Income Arbitrage Beta Index (0.07 per cent).
IQ Hedge Emerging Markets Beta Index was the only index to end the month in negative territory with a return of -0.31 per cent.
ALPS has launched the ALPS Real Asset Income Fund, a portfolio of real asset investments in master limited partnerships (MLPs), global infrastructure, and commodities.
ALPS has partnered with Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, CoreCommodity Management and Alerian in the management of the fund, which is designed to offer investors an alternative source of growth and income.
The REALX Fund taps the experience of each of the partners:
• The MLP Strategy, managed by ALPS Advisors, will track the Alerian MLP Infrastructure Index, a leading benchmark for the liquid, midstream-focused subset of energy MLPs whose constituents earn the majority
The Credit Suisse Liquid Alternative Beta (LAB) Index was up 0.77 per cent in November, according to Dr Jordan Drachman, head of alternative beta strategies at Credit Suisse.
The Managed Futures strategy was the strongest performer for the month, finishing up 3.08 per cent in November.
The Event Driven strategy was the strongest performing strategy year-to-date, returning 9.97 per cent year-to-date in 2013.
November trading volumes for options contracts on Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and C2 Options Exchange (C2SM) and futures contracts on CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) totalled 91.90 million contracts.
Average daily volume (ADV) was nearly 4.60 million contracts, a six per cent increase from November 2012 and a 16 per cent decrease from October 2013.
Year to date, CBOE Holdings ADV rose three per cent from the same period a year ago.
CBOE's November ADV was 4.18 million contracts, a five per cent increase from November 2012 and a 16 per cent decrease from October 2013.
Equity
Derivatives trading and clearing activities grew in November from a year earlier while securities trading declined, according to Singapore Exchange (SGX).
The derivatives market also had a record-high open interest.
The value of securities traded was USD19.5bn, down 30 per cent from USD27.8bn last year. The daily average value of securities traded declined to USD927m from USD1.3bn.
A total of 57 bonds raising USD11.3bn were listed. The biggest debt listed was Singapore Housing Development Board’s USD1.5bn fixed rate notes due 2017.
There were three new IPOs in November raising USD2.7bn.
Derivatives volume rose 23 per cent
The performance of absolute return funds has improved with over 70 per cent of funds posting positive performance in 2012 and 2013, supported by more favourable market conditions, according to a report from Fitch Ratings.
Returns have showed low volatility but have not always been independent of market conditions, notably volatility and correlation.
Over the past three years, short volatility strategies have been most successful as market volatility declined. However, longer term, funds that deploy different strategies for low and high market volatility provide more stable, longer term returns. The most successful funds employ short volatility strategies, for example
Eze Software Group has launched a new version of the Tradar PMS, its portfolio management system for buy-side institutions.
Version 5.1 provides enhanced operational workflow and new performance reporting capabilities, offering additional insight into the drivers of investment returns and further increasing transparency for investors.
Tradar PMS 5.1 delivers an advanced feature set that enables faster, more integrated, communication across the client’s organisation. Enhancements include flexible management of contracts and open tax lots, automated email notification of system alerts based on user permissions, and a new tool allowing users to send out ad-hoc system-related message alerts and reports directly
Corporate credit specialist Muzinich & Co has launched the Muzinich & Co Global Tactical Credit Fund, which seeks to find the best credit investments across global public fixed income markets.
This is achieved through assessment of relative value across rating, duration and geographic spectrums, coupled with rigorous fundamental bottom-up analysis of investment grade and high yield corporate bonds and corporate loans.
The fund’s lead manager, Mike McEachern, may also use portfolio hedging techniques to help reduce short-term volatility during periods of rising interest rates or spread widening. The ability to hedge is designed to allow investment decisions to play
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