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Investors predict inflows of USD222bn into hedge funds this year, which would increase the total amount of hedge fund assets under management to approximately USD1.722trn by 2011, according to Deutsche Bank’s eighth annual Alternative Investment Survey.
Half (52 per cent) of investors predict equity long/short to be one of the best performing strategies for 2010, and 51 per cent believe they will increase their allocations to the strategy.
Survey participants are looking to reduce their cash levels over the next six months by USD3.09bn, and 29 per cent have ten per cent or upwards of cash available to allocate to
Final performance for the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index has been confirmed up 0.68 per cent in February with seven out of ten sectors posting positive performance for the month.
The top performing sectors included managed futures (+1.81 per cent), long/short equity (+1.32 per cent) and global macro (+1.10 per cent).
Managed futures and global macro managers capitalised primarily on favourable fixed income and foreign exchange positions which included long exposures to short term interest rates and short exposures to the Euro and the Sterling.
Long/short equity managers were able to recover some of their January losses as a result
All hedge fund strategies except managed futures finished February in negative territory (-0.29 per cent), according to the Lipper Hedge Fund Composite Index.
Other hedge (-0.98 per cent) and dedicated short bias (-0.64 per cent) were the worst performing strategies for February.
Reversing the previous month’s readings, managed futures (+0.26 per cent) led the performance league table for the month, followed by option arbitrage (-0.01 per cent), and event-driven (-0.11 per cent).
Global stock markets edged up 1.45 per cent for February as measured by the MSCI World TR Index.
All three major U.S. stock indices registered strong gains: the
Olivetree Securities, the UK based equities broker, has appointed Steve Wood as a non-executive director to its board.
Wood (pictured) will advise on the development of the company’s strategic direction, goals and objectives, as well as in scrutinising and challenging the company’s management, systems and controls, and risk management processes.
He will represent the company within both the buy and sell side communities.
Until very recently, Wood was global head of trading at Schroders Investment Management, which he joined in 2002 from JP Morgan. In addition to his responsibilities at Schroders he was chairman of the Investment Managers Association Trading
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has cancelled the Australian Financial Services Licence held by City Pacific.
ASIC’s decision to cancel the licence was taken after discussions with the liquidators of City Pacific to ensure the timing of the cancellation would not adversely impact investors in the remaining managed investment scheme operated by City Pacific.
On 25 June 2009, investors in the former City Pacific First Mortgage Fund (now known as the Pacific First Mortgage Fund) voted to remove City Pacific as responsible entity of the fund, and replace it with Trilogy Funds Management.
On 28 August 2009, the Federal
The Bahamas has signed its 11th tax information exchange agreement and has initialled nine additional agreements in advance of the G20 31 March deadline to meet the internationally agreed tax standard.
TIEA negotiations between The Bahamas and Mexico were concluded with the signing of the agreement on 23 February.
The Bahamas expects its 12th TIEA in the coming weeks.
TIEA negotiations have been successfully concluded with Germany, Canada, Spain, Australia, South Africa, South Korea and the seven Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland and Faroe Islands.
Signature on agreements with these countries will follow the completion of the
Eurex, the international derivatives exchange, has received regulatory exemption from the Autorité des marchés financiers in Québec to offer its full suite of products in the province of Québec, Canada.
Eurex is the first-ever foreign derivatives exchange to receive such an exemption by AMF.
“For the first time, Eurex’s entire product range will be available in a key North American market. This is an exciting opportunity to admit customers as new members in Quebec and introduce to them our diverse, highly liquid futures and options products,” says Michael Peters (pictured), member of the Eurex executive board.
Customers from Québec now
SmartPool, the European dark liquidity pool created by NYSE Euronext in partnership with HSBC, J.P. Morgan and BNP Paribas, is launching a service designed to help traders and other market users access, interpret and navigate the post trade data published by European dark trading venues.
Delivered in partnership with NYSE Technologies, SmartPool’s MatchView service will be powered by and fully integrated within the NYSE Technologies’ liquidity discovery service, ioinet, a fast provider of indications of interest and trade adverts to over 350 buy-side and 150 sell-side institutions.
SmartPool MatchView will go live in Q2 2010 with data initially provided by
Following a very strong performance in 2009, the Asian credit market continues to offer significant opportunities for investors across the spectrum.
The increasing number of Ucits hedge funds launched in Europe means that tighter regulation is needed both to protect retail investors and the Ucits brand, a paper by PricewaterhouseCoopers says.
The paper, Future Newcits regulation?, includes some of Europe’s regulators giving their opinions on this growing trend, as well as views on the current conflict between welcome innovation and the need to carefully manage retail investor protection.
“Many European hedge fund managers are increasingly seeking to launch their own Newcits,” says Olwyn Alexander, head of alternatives, PricewaterhouseCoopers (Ireland). “Such funds involve a high degree of responsibility of ensuring the product
