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GreySpark Partners, the capital markets consultancy, has published a new industry report after developing a detailed comparative analysis of Order Management Systems (OMSs) and Execution Management Systems (EMSs) on the market. The research looks at solutions that are available for Sellside use.
EMSs are used by brokers and dealers to access electronic markets and achieve the best executions for their clients, in combination with advanced, automated trading strategies. They incorporate flexible and sophisticated tools, such as transaction cost analysis (TCA), to assess execution performance. OMSs are designed to manage and consolidate client order flows for securities and listed derivatives
Managed futures slipped 0.10% in April according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The Index is down 0.62% year-to-date.
“Although commodity prices dropped in April as measured by a decline of 0.75 percent in the Reuters/CRB Index, several sectors such as industrial metals, natural gas, and soybeans moved higher making for a more difficult trading environment,” says Sol Waksman (pictured), founder and president of BarclayHedge.
Four of Barclay’s eight CTA indices had gains in April. The Barclay Agricultural Traders Index was up 1.36%, Discretionary Traders gained 0.48%, and Currency Traders added 0.34%.
“The US Dollar weakened a bit
Two Managing Directors of Commodities Markets are exiting Société Générale to launch BELACO Capital, a multi-commodity discretionary hedge fund that will be managed from Paris.
Dr Frédéric Lasserre is well-known for building and heading the SG commodity research & strategy team which constantly ranked in top three by the industry. For the past 15 years, he has worked closely with Christophe Cordonnier who has set up and headed the SG sales and structuring commodity investor business. They join forces together with François Beuzelin who spent 12 years at SG where he was heading metals trading before working in a commodity
Hedge funds lost 0.44% in April, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The Index remains up 5.05% year-to-date.
“Equity markets in the US, Europe, and Japan traded lower on the month, giving back some of their Q1 profits,” says Sol Waksman (pictured), founder and president of BarclayHedge. “While an economic slowdown in Europe stokes concerns of recession, a growing consensus that quantitative easing in the US is coming to an end confounds investors as to the impact on equity prices.”
In April, 12 of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indices had losses. The Technology Index was down
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has approved a final rule on swap data record-keeping and reporting requirements for counterparties to pre-enactment swaps, those swaps executed prior to passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, and transition swaps, those entered into between the law’s enactment date and the applicable compliance date for swap data record-keeping and reporting.
The goal of the final rule for these swaps, collectively called historical swaps, is to specify what records must be kept and what data must be reported. The rule is also designed to ensure that historical swap data is available to regulators through swap
With the exception of a stable CTA Global strategy and a profitable Fixed Income Arbitrage strategy, all the major hedge fund strategies in the EDHEC-Risk Alternative Indexes finally registered losses after a first quarter of positive but waning performances.
The strong progression of the LGBI, along with a receding dollar, did not make up for the moderate setback of the commodities market and the CTA Global strategy (-0.01%) only managed stability in the end. The shrinking credit spread and increasing default spread outweighted the negative performance of convertible bonds to sustain the growth of the Fixed Income Arbitrage strategy (+0.50%).
The post-2008 influx of institutional money into hedge funds has resulted in a marked increase in the global industry’s operational sophistication and transparency to investors, according to a new report by KPMG and the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the global hedge fund association.
The report, entitled: “The Evolution of an Industry”, is based on a survey of and in-depth interviews of 150 hedge fund management firms globally with more than GBP550bn in combined assets under management. It found that hedge fund management firms have increased their operational infrastructure in areas like investor transparency and regulatory compliance as allocations
The Dutch Hedge Fund Index ended April 1.12% lower – more than the DB (-0.24%) and Lyxor Hedge Fund Indices (-0.02%) for the month but still positive for the year (+2.29% Ytd).
April’s performance is a result of the weighting to Long/ Short Equity managers within the Index and more specifically the geographic focus of these managers.
Most managers tend to invest close to home and focus on European companies they know well and have an edge.
Macro economic sentiment however punished European bourses hanging Grexit and whatmore.
US and Asian markets posted much better numbers in April.
Correlations in
Fundsmith chief executive Terry Smith on why austerity v growth is a sterile debate…
I have appeared recently on Newsnight (23 minutes in), ITN News and BBC News talking about the debate over austerity v growth. I also appeared on Robert Peston’s BBC2 programme about the Eurozone crisis – The Great Euro Crash.
These appearances were prompted by the Eurozone crisis coming back into focus, and in particular by a period of a week in which the Dutch government fell; elections in Greece failed to produce a government, and in particular failed to produce a consensus which supported the austerity
Man Group is to acquire London-based hedge fund research and investment specialist Financial Risk Management (FRM) in a deal worth up to USD82.8million.
Once the acquisition is completed, which is expected to be before the end of Q3 2012, FRM will be incorporated into Man’s existing Multi-Manager business leaving the new combined business with USD19 billion assets under management.
The FRM brand will be maintained, but according to a statement released by Man, the company expects to make savings of up USD45 million a year from ‘operational synergies’.
No consideration will be paid up front. The contingent consideration which will
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