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S&P Capital IQ’s Real Time Solutions has released its automated trading platform, QuantFACTORY 5.3.2, which includes a number of new features designed to help strengthen its overall capabilities and performance.
Quant traders, researchers and developers at banks, hedge funds and prop desks will benefit from the firm’s QuantDEVELOPER, QuantDATACENTER and QuantFRAMEWORK offerings. These will enable them to build and deploy alpha models more rapidly, thus allowing them to further focus on business development.
QuantFACTORY offers a complete set of tools for the development and automation of quantitative trading strategies. Based on a .NET framework clients can rationalise their
Last year one of the biggest themes was that Europe didn’t get fixed, yet it was provided with so much liquidity that it was inflated out of its existing stress levels,” says Fraser Lundie (pictured), who runs the credit desk at Hermes Fund Managers alongside Mitch Reznick. “The reason that was such a big trade, in particular for high yield, was because it was in no way consensus. At the start of 2012 there wasn’t a single person on the street who had European high yield returning no more than a few per cent at best.
“Because everyone was caught
Graham Stock (pictured), chief strategist at Insparo Asset Management comments on China-Africa relations ahead of the China-Africa Business Summit…
“China is a source of valuable inward investment for Africa and will remain a long-term source of demand for African exports. The focus to date has been on oil and base and precious metals, with Chinese diplomatic and commercial activity particularly evident in Angola, Sudan, Nigeria, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zimbabwe. We expect to see increased interest in the agricultural sector too, through demand for grain exports from southern Africa, long-term leases of undeveloped arable land across the
BCS Prime Brokerage, an independent financial institution, has appointed John Barker and Edward Golosov to its board.
Barker (pictured) and Golosov join existing executive directors Rizwan Kayani and Vitaliy Shelikhovskiy.
Barker joins as a non-executive director bringing more than 20 years of management experience in financial markets, including regulated brokers, banks and electronic trading platforms to the firm.
Prior to this role, Barker was the chief executive and managing director of Liquidnet Europe. He was also head of international with responsibility for driving revenue across Asia, Canada and the move into Latin America. Barker was intrinsic
Hedge funds gained 1.12 per cent in March, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
The index is up 3.96 per cent year to date, and has enjoyed ten straight months of gains.
“The mid-month announcement of a flawed Cyprus bailout plan unsettled global markets and sentiment shifted back to risk-off,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. “Interest rates moved lower and equity markets were muted with the notable exceptions of the US and Japan. The Nikkei Index gained 7.25 per cent as the BOJ aggressively moved to reflate Japan’s economy and stressed
The International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has published a consultation paper on Principles for Financial Benchmarks, which seeks public comments on a set of high-level principles for benchmarks used in global financial markets.
Because of the wide diversity of benchmarks, IOSCO is also asking for public comment on a subset of more detailed principles for benchmarks having specific risks arising from their reliance on submissions and/or their ownership structure.
The principles form part of IOSCO ́s efforts to enhance the integrity, the reliability and the oversight of benchmarks by establishing guidelines for benchmark administrators and other relevant
Appleby, a provider of offshore legal, fiduciary and administration services, has made two senior additions to its funds and investment services team in Guernsey.
Appleby’s global head of funds, Ian Gobin (pictured), will transfer from the Cayman office to lead the global funds practice for a period of time from Guernsey. He will be joined by Deborah Poole who will be returning to Appleby in May as a partner in the same team.
Gobin joined Appleby last November having spent 11 years with another offshore firm. An expert in the funds and finance arena, with extensive knowledge of both the
RWC has launched a Cayman-based European Focus Fund with USD145m under management, representing support from existing investors.
The fund will be managed by the European Focus team who joined RWC from Hermes in October 2012 and replicates the existing strategy they have managed in a UK limited partnership since February 2009.
Dan Mannix (pictured), chief executive of RWC, says: “We believe there are growing opportunities for long-term investors to capitalise on the market conditions in which many companies are undervalued and overlooked. Investors are increasingly looking for different ways to access the equity markets to complement their growing books
Western European CDS spreads have experienced a relatively stable quarter, despite receiving news that Cypriot banks – after taking a hit on their investment in Greek bonds – were insolvent, according to S&P Capital IQ’s latest quarterly Global Sovereign Debt Credit Risk Report.
A last minute bail out of Cyprus prevented a default as upfront prices fluctuated 7pts towards the end of the quarter. However, default risks remain high at 70 per cent over five years, according to the report.
Meanwhile in the UK, spreads widened to 55bps after the much anticipated credit rating downgrade, but finished the quarter
The Market Authority of the Channel Islands Stock Exchange (CISX) has approved its 5,000th security for admission to its Official List.
The listed security, sponsored by Ogier, is a special purpose vehicle from specialist real estate debt provide, Capital A Finance.
The milestone, achieved in its 15th year, has been reached at a time when the CISX has recorded consistent growth despite the difficult trading conditions. During 2012 there were 510 new listings in total compared to 498 the previous year and trading volumes increased by 64 per cent.
Ogier was the sponsor for the Exchange’s milestone
