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Eze Castle Integration, a leading provider of IT services, technology and consulting to hedge funds and investment firms, has released its 2011 Hedge Fund Operations & Technology Benchmark Study of more than 220 hedge funds and alternative investment firms. The Eze Castle study provides insight into the operational decisions being made by fund managers, examining their use of technology to meet investor and regulatory requirements.
The combination of preparing for regulations and the demand for greater investor transparency is resulting in a strong focus on deploying and optimizing technology to manage, protect and more effectively use data, from the front
Omgeo has launched the Hedge Fund Operations Forum (HOF), an industry peer group for UK-based hedge fund operations professionals. Members of the HOF will meet on a quarterly basis to exchange ideas and knowledge of operational best practice implementation that goes beyond current regulatory requirements.
The founding members of HOF include the UK’s leading hedge funds, which have some of the most sophisticated post-trade infrastructures in the sector. Members of the forum include BlueBay Asset Management, Cairn Capital, Cheyne Capital, CQS, Marshall Wace and RAB Capital, among others.
Operational best practice is a focus area for many UK-based hedge
The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index was up 1.37% in April. Year-to-date performance as of April 2011 is up 2.14%.
The top performing strategies over the month were Lyxor CTA Long Term Index (+3.61%), Lyxor CTA Short Term Index (+1.87%), Lyxor Global Macro Index (+1.81%), and Lyxor L/S Equity Variable Bias Index (+1.46%).
The ‘Lyxor Hedge Indices’ are investable, asset-weighted hedge fund indices. They are based on Lyxor’s hedge fund platform that covers all the major hedge fund strategies and benefits from a high level of transparency and risk control, while ensuring weekly liquidity.
The Hennessee Hedge Fund Index advanced 1.3% in April (+3.80% YTD), while the S&P 500 advanced 2.9% (+8.4% YTD), the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased +3.98% (+10.65% YTD), and the NASDAQ Composite Index gained +3.32% (+8.32% YTD). Bonds advanced, as the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index increased +1.27% (+1.71% YTD) and the Barclays High Yield Credit Bond Index advanced +1.55% (+5.49% YTD).
“Hedge funds are underperforming for the year as the investment environment remains challenging for alpha generation. While managers generated gains in long portfolios as equity markets continued to rally, shorting remains challenging for hedge fund managers, detracting from performance,”
New York based CTA Systematic Alpha Management (SAM) has extended its contract with QuantHouse, a leading supplier of next-generation trading systems, to include QuantLINK, an advanced trading infrastructure interconnecting the heart of exchanges with proximity hosting at the source.
QuantLINK will enhance QuantHouse’s global order routing capabilities and co-location services within exchanges. As a result of the contract, SAM has placed two high performance servers in the QuantHouse facility in Chicago, located in the vicinity of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) data centre order matching engine.
Using QuantLINK’s low-latency connection with the CME order server will significantly reduce overall
The Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained an emergency asset freeze and court order to halt an ongoing securities fraud being orchestrated by Robert C Butler of Bermuda Dunes, Calif.
The SEC alleges that from January 2009 to March 2011, Butler raised approximately USD3.3 million from at least 17 investors who were mostly senior citizens living in or around Indio, Calif. He operated out of his home and dazzled investors with his multiple computer screens and a purported proprietary trading program that he claimed to use in his day trading business. Butler promised exorbitant returns to investors through investments in
A Swedish institutional client has become the first investor to use Signet Group’s latest innovation: a share class denominated in a basket of Asian currencies. The multi-million dollar investment came from a client that has been invested in Signet funds-of-funds for several years.
The UK- and US-based absolute-return multi-manager investment specialist, normally denominates its funds in major currencies for its predominantly institutional client base. (Until recently, Signet also offered a share class denominated in gold.)
By contrast, Signet’s new Asian Currency Index (ACI) share class is hedged to a pool of Asian currencies using HSBC’s new Asia Weighted Index.
Newedge has made two senior appointments to in its New York office. John Fay (pictured) has been named Global Head of the firm’s FICC Business Line (Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities), and Bill Sexton has joined as head of the Americas Region, taking over Fay’s previous permanent role.
Fay has been Acting Head of FICC since October 2010, while also serving in a dual role as Head of the Americas Region. John joined Newedge in December 2009 after serving as Co-CEO and Co-President of Instinet. He also previously held senior level positions with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. 


State Street Corporation this week released its latest Vision Focus report: “The Changing Shape of European In
Rising commodity prices and solid gains in managed futures helped the UCITS Alternative Index Global, one of 13 indices managed by Geneva-based Alix Capital,
