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Citi Private Bank has hired hedge fund expert, Roger Bacon as head of Manage
London-based heavyweight CQS, one of the world’s most renowned credit-focused hedge fund managers, has seen a clear
Hong Kong-based Zeal Asset Management has hired Iris Chan to be in charge of investor relations.
Malta has moved into 11th position in financial market development, according to the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index 2010-2011.
Key performance indicators for the financial services sector also confirm the sector’s standing as a leading innovator in the Maltese economy.
This ranking is two notches up from the previous year.
The soundness of Maltese banks has been ranked in tenth position (up from 13th). This also means that Malta has effectively retained its joint fifth position in this area if it is considered that there are eight countries tying in the top ten segment.
Malta also moved up from 13th
The European Fund and Asset Management Association has welcomed the publication of a regulation on over-the-counter derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories.
Efama supports the European Commission’s aims to increase transparency of the derivatives market, reduce risk and enhance market integrity and oversight.
In particular, it welcomes the reduction of counterparty risk that central counterparties would bring and the enhanced transparency to mitigate systemic risk.
Peter De Proft, director general of Efama, says: “Efama fully supports the Commission’s efforts to introduce regulation for OTC derivatives and move from OTC bilateral clearing to central clearing for standardised derivative contracts. Derivatives are
The IQ Hedge Global Macro Beta Index rose by 1.42 per cent in August, according to data from IndexIQ, a developer of index-based alternative investment solutions.
The index is up by 6.01 per cent year-to-date.
Index IQ’s other hedge fund replication indices posted negative performances for the month.
Long/short fell by 1.21 per cent, event-driven by 0.01 per cent, market neutral by 0.07 per cent, emerging markets by 2.91 per cent, fixed income arbitrage by 2.08 per cent and composite by 0.82 per cent.
“The extraordinary volatility of the financial markets over the past few years has provided a terrific
Managed futures gained 1.48 per cent in August, according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge.
“Continued weakness in sales of US residential properties and high jobless claims teamed up to diminish investor risk appetites,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.
“Global equity prices declined in both developed and emerging markets while the rally in bond markets continued. The yield on the ten-year US treasury note fell to 2.5 per cent in August.”
Seven of Barclay’s eight CTA indices had gains in August. The Barclay Diversified Traders Index gained 2.36 per cent, systematic traders rose 1.86 per
Final performance for the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index has been confirmed up 0.23 per cent in August and 2.46 per cent year-to-date.
Seven out of ten sectors posted positive performance for the month.
In contrast, global equity markets, as represented by the Dow Jones World Index, fell 3.62 per cent amid market concerns over the weakening pace of global economic growth.
Among the top performing hedge fund sectors for the month were managed futures (+4.87 per cent) and global macro (+1.48 per cent), which benefited from long fixed income positions and relatively low exposure to equity markets.
Bolsas y Mercados Espanoles, the Spanish stock exchange operator, and Clearstream, the post trade arm of Deutsche Börse Group, have welcomed the details on trade repositories for over-the-counter derivatives published by the European Commission.
BME and Clearstream say there is need for clarification regarding the suggested design of the access for third country trade repository providers and the planned timeframe for implementation.
They will therefore continue their close dialogue with the commission and other political stakeholders.
BME’s and Clearstream’s joint initiative, Regis-TR, the first European trade repository, complies with all new regulatory proposals that have been made public.
Jesús Benito
The Lyxor Global Hedge Fund index was up 0.05 per cent in August, lifting year to date gains to 0.8 per cent.
Equity markets were severely hit as major economic indicators faltered. Markets became fearful of a sharper than expected growth slowdown and the rising probability of a double dip in the US economy weighed on risky assets.
In such a context, beta exposures were a strong performance detractor. Long short equity managers were down by 1.5 per cent in the long bias segment and by one per cent in the variable bias one. Even though this negative performance is
