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The equity market reversal and tumbling commodities in January hit trend-following strategies, causing managed futures managers to post their second worst monthly return in 13 months, according to a report by Lipper Tass.
The Lipper managed futures/CTAs index registered a negative return of 3.23 per cent for January and minus 4.54 per cent year on year.
The sub-strategy ended the month as the second worst performer in the hedge fund performance league table.
The degree of dispersion among individual fund returns increased further from the previous month’s reading. A 41.08-percentage-point monthly performance difference in January divided the top and bottom
Ashmore Group, an emerging markets investment manager, had assets under management of USD31.6bn at 31 December 2009, an increase of USD6.7bn or 27 per cent from 30 June 2009.
The increase comprised net subscriptions of USD3.9bn and positive investment performance of USD2.8bn.
The group’s profit before tax rose 40 per cent to GBP112.4m from GBP80.3m in 2008, resulting in basic earnings per share of 12.51p.
Total net revenue increased by 42 per cent to GBP148.8m from GBP104.5m in 2008.
Net management fees fell 13 per cent from GBP101.9m in 2008 to GBP88.4m at 31 December 2009.
An interim dividend
Andy Lando has returned to Merlin Securities, a mid-tier prime brokerage services provider, as a senior partner.
Lando, who was one of the firm’s founders in 2004, will head Merlin’s newly formed securities lending group.
“We are delighted to welcome Andy back to Merlin to launch an important new offering for our clients,” says Stephan Vermut, founder and managing partner of Merlin Securities. “In this role, Andy and his team will centralise all securities lending activities with Merlin’s clearing brokers and give guidance to clients on both supply and rates. This consultative effort will help clients optimise their portfolios
Progress Software has joined forces with Statistical Research Laboratory, a company developing software for financial trading desks, to provide a trading technology solution for brokers and hedge funds.
The SRL solution will be powered by the Progress Apama complex event processing platform.
It will offer two components: “broker in a box” technology providing brokers with outsourced algorithmic trading and internalization capabilities across multiple asset classes; and “hedge fund in a box” capabilities offering hedge funds the technology platform to trade complex, high frequency trading strategies as well as to manage and monitor P&L, risk and back office functions such as
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued an order filing and simultaneously settling charges against UBS for exceeding the New York Mercantile Exchange’s position limits on certain natural gas, heating oil and platinum futures contracts on more than one occasion between December 2006 and March 2008.
The CFTC order imposes a USD130,000 civil monetary penalty on UBS.
Additionally, UBS was ordered to cease and desist from further such violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and to comply with an undertaking set forth in the order.
According to the order, on more than one occasion UBS exceeded the position
The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted a rule to place certain restrictions on short selling when a stock is experiencing significant downward price pressure.
The measure is intended to promote market stability and preserve investor confidence.
This alternative uptick rule is designed to restrict short selling from further driving down the price of a stock that has dropped more than ten per cent in one day.
It will enable long sellers to stand in the front of the line and sell their shares before any short sellers once the circuit breaker is triggered.
"The rule is designed to preserve
New research has suggested that the US recovery is operating at a below-normal level for its current position in the economic cycle.
Funds that invest in traded life policies with the right diversification of policies, prudent actuarial analysis and due consideration to increasing life expectancies can deliver steady returns, says Jeremy Leach, managing director of fund management company Managing Partners.
Leach says the Financial Services Authority is right to raise concerns about products in the traded life policy market, but points out that all of these concerns were raised in the Merlin Stone Report of 2008.
That report said the rapidly growing popularity of traded life policies has its dangers and that traded life policies are still widely misunderstood, even by institutions.
Cardano has appointed Stephanie Bruneau and Anna Genda to its London-based team.
Bruneau joins Cardano’s investment management team and Genda joins the client team.
Bruneau has over ten years’ investment industry experience. Before joining Cardano she worked for five years at GAM, where she analysed and recommended credit and multi-strategy funds. She also worked at P. Schoenfeld Asset Management for five years, investing in merger arbitrage and broader event-driven opportunities.
Genda joins Cardano from Mercer, where she worked as an analyst in its investment consulting business. Whilst at Mercer she worked on a wide range of investment issues including strategic
Nara Capital, an alternative advisory and consultancy service provider based in Geneva, will start to release its Ucits Alternative Index to the public.
The series of indices aims to track the performance Ucits hedge funds and funds of funds.
The following indices are calculated: Ucits Alternative Index; Global Ucits Alternative Index; Fund of Funds Ucits Alternative Index; Long/Short Equity Ucits Alternative Index; Equity Market Neutral Ucits Alternative Index; Fixed Income Ucits Alternative Index; CTA Ucits Alternative Index; Macro Ucits Alternative Index; Event Driven Ucits Alternative Index; Commodities Ucits Alternative Index; FX Ucits Alternative Index; and Multi-Strategy.
The Ucits
