Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
Bloomberg – Liongate Capital Management LLP, a London-based firm managing $2.2 billion, plans to raise $500 million for a fund of commodity hedge funds.
The Liongate Commodities Fund returned about 0.1 percent last year and 0.3 percent in January, when it operated with the firm’s capital of $40 million, the company said in a statement and a presentation. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index tracking 19 commodities lost 39 percent in the 13 months through Jan. 30.
“It’s an inauspicious time to invest in commodities,” said Tim Price, director of investments at London-based PFP Wealth Management, a financial adviser. “In the longer term, a shift to an inflation bias from the current deflation would represent a huge opportunity.”
Reuters – In a period when volatile markets battered most hedge funds, global macro funds are proving their worth, Graham Capital Chairman Kenneth Tropin told Reuters.
During one of the hedge fund industry’s worst years, Graham delivered gains of up to 41 percent in 2008 by making good bets on currencies, stocks, interest rates and commodities. And because the firm invests in highly liquid futures, clients had monthly access to cash even as many funds blocked withdrawals.
The combination of liquidity and returns that are independent of the broader market could revive interest in global macro funds, Tropin said.
"For a long time there was a perception that the biggest returns, the best risk-adjusted returns, were in other strategies. Then we had a market environment last year where most hedge fund styles ended up being correlated to each other and to the equity markets as well," he said.
Graham manages $4.9 billion in assets in human-directed funds and computer-driven quantitative funds. Funds in both categories invest across fixed income, currency, commodity and equity futures.
"Our style of investing offers some benefits, including liquidity and diversification, that may have not been appreciated as much as they should be," he said.
Graham’s quant funds gained from 20 percent to 41 percent last year, while human-directed funds rose by 6 to 27 percent. By comparison, the average hedge fund lost 28 percent.
Economic Times - Gold, the traditional safe haven in times of economic turmoil, proved to be more a commodity that everyone loved to hate last year even amid the turbulence that engulfed world markets.
But as 2009 gets under way the yellow metal has found huge traction with money managers. In the last eight sessions, gold has rallied as much as $100 an ounce to hit a near four-month high of $915.30 on Monday — in spite of a rising dollar.
Mena Report – The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority (DMCCA) and Shariah Capital, Inc. (SCAP.L) today announced the Dubai Shariah Hedge Fund Index, the first internationally-recognised index comprised exclusively of Shariah compliant hedge funds. The Dubai Shariah Hedge Fund Index will be calculated and reported by Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI), the global news and financial information organisation.
The Index reflects the performance of the DSAM Kauthar Commodity Fund, Ltd. (“DKCF”). DKCF is an equally-weighted fund-of-funds comprised initially of four single- strategy, commodity-focused funds that invest exclusively in Shariah compliant long/short equity hedge funds on the Al Safi Trust platform. The Al Safi Trust is a comprehensive Shariah compliant platform designed specifically for hedge funds and launched recently by Barclays Capital and Shariah Capital. Distributed under the DSAM Kauthar label, the four funds underlying the index have been seeded with US$50 million each by DMCCA.
Moneycontrol.com – Samir Arora, Fund Manager, Helios Capital, said the markets are too volatile to predict yet, but we may be close to the bottom. "The fall in markets may be getting over, but it may take months to recover. There is a reasonable prospect of a rally in December."
He feels the market recovery should start in the second half of FY10 post the elections.
New Yorker – “Death by a thousand cuts.” “Fire-sale liquidation.” “A vortex of selling.” No matter how people described the market collapse that hit a month ago, the message was the same: it felt like there was nowhere to go but down, and it felt like we’d be going there forever. (Given last week’s dip, it still does.)
Beginning on September 29th, the U.S. stock market fell on nine of the next ten trading days, plummeting twenty-six per cent; then, after a short, sharp rally, it lost ten per cent more in less than two days.
Explanations for the crash often focussed on the hysteria and panic that periodically seem to seize investors. But the madness of crowds wasn’t the whole story. In a healthy market, there are countercyclical forces—mechanisms and institutions that go against the general market trend and encourage diversity of thinking—that make it harder for feedback loops and vicious cycles to take hold. Lately, though, many of these institutions and mechanisms have become procyclical: instead of countering trends, they amplify them.
TIMES – The ups and downs of the Dow are making Wall Street’s so-called "smart money" look dopey. Hedge funds lost nearly $300 billion due to bad investments in the first nine months of the year, according to an analysis of return data by TIME.com.
If the losses stand it would be by far the worst year for these funds, which are unregulated and open only to high-net worth investors, since their returns began being tracked in the mid-1970s. "It’s not going to be a good year," says Peter Laurelli, vice-president at HedgeFund.net. "We can be pretty sure of that."
The calculation does not include gains some of the funds may have made in Monday’s rally, but analysts say that won’t be nearly enough to erase the hundreds of billions of dollars the funds are down. "The losses should concern every investor because these are supposed to be the smartest guys out there," says Charles Gradante, who is the co-founder of hedge fund advisory firm Hennesse Group. "If they can’t manage their investments how is average person with a 401(k) supposed to cope?"
