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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued a final rule regarding changes to Part 4 of the Commission’s regulations involving registration and compliance obligations for commodity pool operators (CPO) and commodity trading advisors (CTA).
The rule increases transparency to the CFTC of CPOs and CTAs acting in the futures and swaps markets and enhances protections for their customers. The rule passed 4-1, with Chairman Gary Gensler (pictured), and Commissioners Chilton, O’Malia and Wetjen voting in favour and Commissioner Sommers voting against the final rule. The rule, which was first proposed on January 26, 2011, will be effective 60 days after
Barry Norris (pictured), Partner, Argonaut Capital Partners and Manager of the Ignis Argonaut European Alpha Fund, on how the Eurozone is defying the doom-mongers…
When S&P downgraded France, Spain and Italy earlier this year it was seen by many observers to be confirmation that the Euro-zone was insolvent and the single currency at risk of imminent collapse. Instead, European equity markets have had their strongest start to the year since 1998; Italian and Spanish government bond yields have fallen 200bps from their highs in November to 5.5% and 5.0% respectively and high yield credit spreads have fallen now to 5.5%
The international derivatives market Eurex Exchange has introduced new equity options on 17 shares, with 14 of the new options based on shares which belong to the German mid-cap index MDAX. This latest offering completes Eurex’s lineup of equity options on MDAX companies.
In a further move, an additional 17 equity options based on individual shares in the TecDAX index will be introduced on 24 February. This expansion will allow Eurex Exchange to offer equity options on all constituents of the German blue-chip indices DAX, MDAX and TecDAX for the first time.
All of the newly listed derivatives are American-style
Universal-Investment has acquired SEB Master KAG. SEB previously bundled its activities in Germany relating to the launching and management of hedge funds.
“This acquisition will strengthen our position as the only complete provider of administration services in Germany,” says Bernd Vorbeck, spokesman of the Universal-Investment management board. With this acquisition, he says, the company is expanding its offerings by an additional asset class after the supervisory authority BaFin gave Universal-Investment the permission to launch and manage hedge funds in September of 2011.
The acquisition increases the fund volume managed by Universal-Investment by EUR110 million and additional clients in the German-speaking
Bryan Garnier Asset Management (BGAM) has appointed Epiphanios Michael ‘Epi’ to the its Fund Management Team. Michael will be Fund Manager for the European Equities Long/Short product with full responsibility for the investment process and research on the Leadership en Actions Fund.
Steve Wallace, Vania Mareuse and the team at Bryan Garnier will provide Epi with all the support needed for the fund to be successful and for Epi to be an integral part of BGAM.
Michael joins from StormHarbour Alternative Investments, which is an European Long/Short fund based in London, where he was an analyst on European stocks until
At a time when investors are facing some of the most testing market conditions in living memory, insurers are overwhelmingly concerned about meeting the reporting challenges required under Solvency II.
With prolonged periods of frustratingly low interest rates and overall slow growth set to continue, insurers may look to alternative asset classes in their search for yield.
Those are among the key findings of a new survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, on behalf of BlackRock, Inc (NYSE: BLK), examining the impact of Solvency II on the asset allocation and investment strategy of insurers with operations in Europe.
The Salus Alpha RN Special Situations had a performance of +4.85% for the month to date, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by +0.49%.
The Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage had a performance of +0.77% for the month to date. The 12 month rolling alpha of Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage to the S&P500 is 4% pa, the 12 month rolling beta is currently 0.0. This implies that in the past 12 months, the Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage had a return of 4% due to active management (alpha).
Salus Alpha Commodity Arbitrage tracks the CAX – Commodity Arbitrage Index. The CAX Index covers
Size mattered in the fund of hedge funds sector in 2011, as large managers saw AUM fall while those in the mid-market enjoyed an average 10% increase, the latest Preqin research shows.
In total, 24% of fund of hedge funds managers reported an increase in AUM during the course of 2011, an increase of seven percentage points on the proportion that enjoyed an increase between 2008 and 2009.
Managers with USD10bn or more under management endured an average 2.1% decrease in AUM in 2011, suggesting that while investors are keen to invest with managers with a sizeable level of capital,
Cisco Systems Inc, Comcast Corp (Class A shares) and FedEx Corp have been added to the Dow Jones US Contrarian Opportunities Index.
The index is designed to systematically measure the performance of stocks that lag behind the broader market in terms of recent performance, but outrank their peers based on fundamentals and other qualitative criteria.
Including Cisco Systems (the world’s 31st-largest company, measured by free-float market capitalisation), Comcast (54th-largest) and FedEx (223rd-largest), a total of 54 companies were added to ― and 52 deleted from ― the index as part of a regular semi-annual review by Dow Jones Indexes,
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a hedge fund manager and his Menlo Park, California-based firm for their involvement in the insider trading ring connected to Raj Rajaratnam and hedge fund advisory firm Galleon Management.
The SEC alleges that Douglas F Whitman and Whitman Capital illegally traded based on material nonpublic information obtained from Rajaratnam associate Roomy Khan, who was Whitman’s friend and neighbour. Khan tipped Whitman with confidential details about Polycom Inc.’s fourth quarter 2005 earnings and Google Inc’s second quarter 2007 earnings prior to the public announcements of those financial results by the companies. Whitman Capital reaped
