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Wall Street Journal – Quantitative fund managers, who use computer models rather than human judgment to pick securities, have seen their world turned upside down by the credit crisis.
The first generation of managers and their models have moved on: Their inheritors are having to accommodate a changed landscape full of skeptical investors. In reaction, quant managers have spent 2008 making adjustments to their models, finding new sources of data and tightening secrecy.
Asset managers, in general, are facing tough times, but stock-picking is at least a familiar and well-worn concept for investors. They may not always be happy with their human asset managers, but they are continuing to talk to them. The so-called black boxes that carry out the complex strategies of quantitative funds, on the other hand, are increasingly out of favor with investors and investment consultants.
Bloomberg – Octagon Capital Management Pte, run by former managers of the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.’s quantitative-investment group, plans to start a fund that seeks to profit from broad economic trends.
Octagon, which uses computer models to pick trades, will raise money “in the near future” for a quantitative macro fund that wagers on currencies, equities, interest rates and commodities in Asia, said Lam Poh Min, 39, co-founder of the Singapore-based hedge-fund firm, in an interview. The firm is looking for a “more opportune time” to start the fund, Lam said yesterday.
Reuters – Renaissance Technologies LLC, the multibillion dollar hedge fund known for delivering top returns by relying on complicated computer models, hired a new president and chief executive officer for its institutional business.
The fund firm, which manages roughly $20 billion, said on Tuesday that it has hired Matthew Scanlan to replace Stephen Robert, who retired from the firm.
Scanlan joins the firm from Barclays Global Investors where he worked for 12 years and was most recently the company’s head of institutional business in the Americas.
