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Armajaro Asset Management is expanding its successful hedge fund range with the launch of its sixth fund, the Armajaro Natural Resources Fund.
Nick Glinsman has joined Armajaro Asset Management to manage the fund, which will launch on 1 February, 2011 and take a diversified approach across natural resources spanning metals, energy and agriculture. The strategy will focus on macro trends through positions in commodity-related equities rather than through the commodity futures market in order to express its views and themes in a more leveraged and very liquid way.
Prior to joining Armajaro, Glinsman successfully ran his natural resources trading strategy
The Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index rose 4.0% in December, resulting in an increase of 10.4% for the year, according to preliminary results released by the investment research firm.
The currency-hedged Morningstar MSCI Hedge Fund Index experienced a 3.0% December boost and concluded the year up 10.6%. A year-end rally in both stocks and bonds buoyed the indexes, which have each recovered from their October 2007 through February 2009 declines.
"Hedge funds finished strongly in 2010, and most have now fully recuperated from 2008’s hangover," says Nadia Papagiannis, alternative investment strategist for Morningstar.
Distressed securities and corporate event-driven strategies
Directional hedge fund strategies were the primary drivers of portfolio performance in 2010, most notably event driven, distressed and emerging markets according to the latest data released by hedge fund adviser Hennessee Group.
The underweighting of these strategies in a hedge fund portfolio likely resulted in underperformance against major hedge fund indices.
“Last year was a tough year for non-directional hedge funds," says Charles Gradante (pictured), co-founder of the Hennessee Group. "The market rally that commenced in early 2009 and continued through the end of 2010 benefited those strategies with elevated levels of exposure to the financial markets
John Hancock Funds has launched the John Hancock Alternative Asset Allocation Fund (JAAAX), a new fund offering investors a disciplined, diversified approach to allocating part of their portfolios to alternative asset classes and strategies.
The John Hancock Alternative Asset Allocation Fund is a multi-managed fund that includes as managers of its underlying funds such leading asset management firms as Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), Wellington Management Company LLP, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Stone Harbor, Deutsche Asset Management, First Quadrant, and John Hancock Asset Management.
The John Hancock Alternative Asset Allocation Fund invests in other funds and investment companies that emphasise
Newedge has been appointment by Aspect Capital as swap counterparty to the Aspect Diversified Trends Fund, a Dublin domiciled UCITs-compliant fund with daily liquidity.
Newedge Group’s UCITS III servicing capability offers comprehensive solutions to fund managers looking to launch regulated products such as UCITS-compliant investment funds. Funds using the Newedge service offering are able to use total return swaps (TRS) to create a synthetic exposure to a financial index, catering specifically for the needs of liquid systematic CTA & Global Macro investment strategies. This is in addition to the extensive synthetic prime brokerage services already offered by Newedge to
Specialist finance and advisory firm Trafalgar Capital Advisors is to launch a hedged Sterling share class.
The new Sterling share class will be launched in conjunction with its strategic partner Peter Neal Pensions LLP for UK- and Sterling-based investors subscribing to its strong-performing TCA Global Credit Master Fund LP.


The Sterling share class is in addition to Trafalgar’s current offerings of a US Dollar and hedged Euro share class. The TCA Global Credit Master Fund has a Five Star rating from Morningstar.


Bob Press, Director of Trafalgar Capital Advisors, says, “ The launch of the hedged Sterling Share Class has
Next Generation Absolute Return, the specialised (UCITS) investment management business domiciled in Luxembourg, has received approval from the Luxembourg regulators for four new single-manager UCITS III compliant sub-funds. Additionally, the regulators have approved Next Generation Absolute Return II and its multi-manager UCITS III compliant sub-fund.
“Approval for both SICAV’s and the five sub-funds has long been anticipated and we do appreciate the care and thoroughness of the Luxembourg supervisory authorities”, says Fred Sage, managing partner of Decision Analytics Advisory Partners AG, the founder and operator of the Next Generation Absolute Return business. "The five founding partners of Decision Analytics strongly
Thames River has strengthened its property team with the appointment of Raymond Lahaut as manager of the Longstone long/short real estate equity fund.
Since its launch in November 2007, Longstone has grown by 23.65% (figures from 30.11.07 to 31.12.10, for euro share class), a period in which the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund Index rose by only 3.7% and EPRA, an index of European listed real estate securities, fell by 32.4%.
Lahaut has been managing portfolios of property securities since 1999, first with Insinger de Beaufort and later at Ohra Asset Management (part of the
The UCITS HFS Index lost 0.71% in the third week of January but is still up 0.03% month to date (by business day 15, January 21st, 2010).
Out of the eleven sub-strategies only Arbitrage was able to add returns to its January performance, although +0.06% will not qualify as remarkable. The biggest losers were Global Macro (-1.05%), Multi Strategy (-0.89%) and L/S Equity (-0.88%). Although having lost -0.23% in the third week of trading, Convertible looks to be the most promising strategy in 2011 with gains of 1.32% in January so far. CTA on the other hand has lost
Morningstar has added OTC Markets Group data (previously known as Pink OTC Markets) to its Morningstar Quotes Data Feed. This latest addition complements the existing realtime and fundamental data sets, with realtime pricing data of more than 10,000 OTC securities.
Morningstar RealTime Data’s feeds deliver fast, reliable data from all major equity exchanges and indexes worldwide, as well as foreign exchange and treasury markets. Data is available for more than 4 million global instruments including futures, options, commodities, and precious metals.
OTC Markets Group operates the world’s largest electronic interdealer quotation system for brokerdealers to trade unlisted securities. OTC
