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GreySpark Partners, the capital markets consultancy, has opened a new office in Hong Kong, to support its APAC clients.
Founded in 2009, GreySpark has been built into a leading consultancy with global clients. The firm now has over 50 consultants delivering projects in seven countries, with Hong Kong being the newest hub they open after London. This move gives GreySpark a firm footing in the region, as Asian markets continue to perform impressively.
GreySpark’s Hong Kong office will provide on-site and local delivery for client projects that are currently being managed from the UK. Driven by client demands, it
A new paper published by ICMA’s European Repo Council (ERC) is calling for more detailed understanding of the precise impact of collateral haircuts in the repo market. The paper: ‘Haircuts and initial margins in the repo market’, written by Richard Comotto of the ICMA Centre, questions the popular view of the role played by collateral haircuts in the recent crisis.
A haircut is a percentage discount deducted from the market value of a security that is being offered as collateral in a repo in order to calculate its purchase price. The adjustment is intended to take account of the
Peter Niven, Chief Executive of Guernsey Finance – the promotional agency for the Island’s finance industry – explains why the jurisdiction continues to prove attractive to MENA managers…
As the promotional agency for the Island’s finance industry, we exhibited at SuperReturn Middle East in Dubai during last October. Making a visit to the region in the final quarter of the year has become a staple part of our promotion and marketing activity in recent years. Once again, we were joined by practitioners from the Guernsey investment funds community, including administrators Legis, Praxis and Kleinwort Benson and law firms Ogier and
NYSE Euronext (NYX) has reported Global derivatives average daily volume (ADV) of 7.5 million contracts in January 2012 – a decrease of 17.3% versus the prior year, with European Derivatives declining 31.3% and US equity options decreasing 4.1%.
European cash trading ADV meanwhile, decreased 14.6% and US cash trading ADV decreased 23.5% from January 2011 levels.
Excluding Bclear, NYSE Liffe’s trade administration and clearing service for OTC products, European derivatives products ADV decreased 28.3% compared to January 2011, but increased 21.6% from December 2011.
NYSE Euronext US equity options ADV of 4.2 million contracts in January 2012 decreased 4.1% compared
In addition to buying copper and oil futures, buying up the shares of mining and oil exploration companies could be a winning strategy over the next decade, according to Steve Shafer (pictured), Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager of Covenant Global Investors.
Commodity prices have boomed as part of a commodity super cycle that began in earnest around 2003, but the shares of companies that produce commodities have lagged behind. Mr. Shafer thinks this could soon change as yield-hungry investors widen their focus to include stocks in undervalued (by historic standards) material and commodities production companies, not just the commodities
PENSCO Trust has launched an education initiative to help investors prevent fraud.
“PENSCO is committed to helping investors stop fraud before it happens,” says PENSCO CEO Kelly Rodriques. “Investing in alternative assets in tax-advantaged accounts is a terrific way to build wealth, but in the current economy, fraudsters may pose a threat to unsuspecting investors. PENSCO’s fraud prevention efforts are designed to educate investors and thwart criminals.”
PENSCO today also publicly endorsed the anti-fraud efforts of the Retirement Industry Trade Association (RITA), which is comprised of the nation’s largest independent custodians in the retirement industry. RITA’s new fraud prevention initiatives
Hedge funds opened 2012 by posting broad-based gains in January, with the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index gaining 2.63 per cent, the second highest monthly performance figure since December 2010, according to data released today by HFR.
Equity Hedge strategies performed the strongest in January, with the HFRI Equity Hedge Index gaining 3.84 per cent, led by Fundamental Growth, Value and Energy/Basic Materials sub-strategies. Event Driven and Relative Value Arbitrage strategies posted gains of 2.4 per cent and 2.3 per cent, respectively, with contributions from ED: Special Situations and Activist funds, as well as RV: Yield Alternative and Convertible Arbitrage
Armstrong Investment Managers has invested into the newly launched sterling share class of the Swiss & Global JB Absolute Return Europe Equity Fund, managed by Andy Kastner, through its flagship IM Distinction Diversified Real Return Fund.
The Julius Baer Absolute Return Europe Equity Fund has delivered strong performance since it was launched at the end of September 2010. The fund has generated a return since inception of +9.9% (as of 31 December 2011) outperforming its benchmark while harnessing lower volatility compared to European markets.
The fund pursues a market-neutral long-short pair-trading strategy. Using a multi-tier process, the team led by
Lou Sala, chief executive of the Capital Markets practice at WTP Advisors, says that in the wake of the Madoff scandal, due diligence processes that were once little more than box-ticking exercises have become a searching and in some respects painful examination for hedge fund managers.
First, my apologies to those who saw the headline and thought that this would be a scintillating discussion piece detailing my insight into the hot hedge fund strategies and the harnessing of alpha. It’s not. What I am presenting here is a view of the other side of investing – the unglamorous, roll-up-your-sleeves world
LCH.Clearnet Limited’s interest rate swap (IRS) clearing service, SwapClear, cleared USD34 billion in total notional client business in January across seven of the 17 currencies currently available.
These volumes bring the total client notional outstanding to USD288 billion. During this period, SwapClear also cleared USD28 trillion of total notional business.
An advocate of compression, SwapClear tore up USD10.8 trillion of cleared transactions in January through multilateral trade compression, taking its overall total compressed trades to USD99 trillion in USD, EUR, GBP and JPY cleared IRS.
“The continued growth in client volume before any mandate has been enacted confirms the buy-side’s
