New York (HedgeCo.net) – Wilmington Trust has launched a new mutual fund, Wilmington Rock Maple Alternatives Fund, which provides exposure to a diverse set of alternative strategies. The new fund is managed by Wilmington Funds Management Corporation (WFMC), a Wilmington Trust company, in partnership with Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors, Inc. (WTIA), and Rock Maple Services, LLC (Rock Maple), an  investment advisor specializing in alternative investments (AUA$800 million).

“We firmly believe investors wanting hedge fund strategies can benefit most from exposure to these strategies through an independent multi manager vehicle.” Doug Fincher, president and CEO of Rock Maple, said,  ”Our partnership with Wilmington Trust allows us to provide this expertise in a mutual fund structure.”

The fund’s portfolio managers selected eight independent sub-advisors, which will oversee separate sub-portfolios of the fund in accordance with specific parameters, constraints, and risk-return objectives. The fund also has assets invested in two independently managed mutual funds. It commenced investment operations on Jan. 12, 2012.

“We are excited to offer clients a new vehicle to diversify their investment exposures and dampen the overall volatility of their portfolios,” said Sam Fraundorf, CFA, president of WTIA. “We are pleased to partner with Rock Maple Funds to launch this product and deliver a truly unique fund for our clients.”

“Diversification among managers and strategies is a key element in pursuing our investment objective,” said Greg Silberman, CA (SA), CFA, vice president and director of hedge funds for Wilmington Trust. “We believe the fund can generate consistent, risk-adjusted returns by adhering to the strict, clearly defined processes in place for manager selection, portfolio construction, and risk management.”

According to a recent report by Morningstar®, assets in alternative mutual funds totaled nearly $80 billion as of Dec. 31, 2011. Such funds accounted for less than one percent of all mutual fund assets.

New York (HedgeCo.net) – The biggest trading experiment in London City history starts this morning when 20 traders hand-picked from over 10,000 applicants place their first live trades in the markets.

Thirty-five year market veteran Mike Baghdady is backing his apprentices to the tune of £100,000 each ($157,000), and allowing them to keep a proportion of their winnings.

“All new turtles have already traded their former lives – from a house wife, a hotel receptionist, a taxi driver, a former actor, a security guard, an Harvard graduate, a former airforce pilot, and a Blackjack player – to become the new hedge fund managers and work at City-based Training Traders. “We’re putting our money and our experience on the line to pioneer a unique social experiment by taking people from varied backgrounds and training them to become successful traders.” Baghdady, said.

Baghdady hopes to prove to the world that anyone can become a successful trader if they follow the rules and pay homage to Richard Dennis and his original turtle traders which caught the world’s imagination, and later was immortalised in the film, Trading Places.

Alex Akesson
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New York (HedgeCo.net) – A free Twitter watcher, WallStreetBirds.com, has been launched by Scottsdale, AZ based Modulus Informatics, Inc., allowing the general public to make investment decisions based on the real-time analysis of twitter data.

“Wall Street Birds is a free service that anyone can use. Simply go to the site, register, type in a company name and instantly receive stock signals based on real-time Twitter analysis. Users are made completely unaware of the mathematical and technical complexities behind the scenes, which was our goal,” said Richard Gardner, founder of Wall Street Birds and CEO of parent company, Modulus Informatics, Inc.

A programming API is also provided for financial institutions desiring a fast track to managing funds using social media. The API can be used for developing high frequency trading systems based on the instantaneous analysis of social media data by Wall Street Birds.

Scientists from Indiana University and the University of Manchester recently published findings proving that social media has an 86.7% accuracy rate at predicting the stock market. Those findings spawned a variety of social media hedge fund startups.

Alex Akesson