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.
Globe and Mail – Harry Dent, a U.S. economist and author known in some circles as the “sage of doom and gloom,” is backing this week’s launch of Dent Tactical ETF – a rare breed among exchange-traded funds.
Dent Tactical is an actively managed ETF in that it doesn’t track an index. It invests in sector, industry or country ETFs where Mr. Dent sees opportunities based on demographic and other trends.
While this fund is among a handful of non-index ETFs in North America, it’s part of a growing niche that is expected to rival traditional mutual funds, observers say.
Reuters – Buying of gold exchange-traded funds picked up, with holdings of the largest, New York’s SPDR Gold Trust, posting its biggest one-day percentage rise since March.
That buying underscored a fresh burst of investor interest from those seeking a refuge from faltering confidence on a broader global economic recovery. Traders said the core of that concern sprang from share prices after Shanghai stocks hit three-month lows this week.
Reuters – Nick Bullman, who told Reuters he has this week placed bets on falling share prices, is concerned that government stimulus packages have not revived bank lending as much as hoped and that conditions remain as tough for companies as they did last year.
"The rally has been a ‘dash for trash’ based on speculation … On Wednesday (I) went short on the Standard and Poor (500) and financials via ETFs (exchange-traded funds)," he said in an interview on Friday.
Bloomberg – Michael McCarty, former chief equity and options strategist at Meridian Equity Partners Inc. in New York, plans to start a hedge fund next month that will make bets on price discrepancies between similar exchange-traded funds.
McCarty, 49, said he is starting Differential Investment Partners LLC with Bret Rekas, 40, who helped oversee about $350 million at Somerset Asset Management LLC in Minneapolis.
Barrons – A big question surrounding BlackRock’s $13.5 billion purchase of Barclays Global Investors, including its iShares exchange-traded-funds business, is how effectively a passive management group can work with an active one.
The combined firm will have more than 9,000 employees in 24 countries. Barclays will retain a 19.9% stake in the firm, which will manage a combined total of $2.7 trillion in assets.
"For two large, successful asset managers, it’s never an easy task to integrate," says Charles Rauch, analyst at Standard & Poor’s, which lowered its long-term credit rating on BlackRock a notch, to single-A-plus, citing "real" integration risk, among other things. However, some of the risk is mitigated by the fact that BlackRock and BGI have few overlapping operations, he adds.
Reuters – Money managers are flooding the market with exchange-traded funds (ETF) and mutual funds designed to give even the smallest of investors access to hedge fund returns without all the usual restrictions or hefty fees.
IndexIQ Advisors, a start-up firm that seeks to replicate hedge fund performance, on Tuesday launched the index-based IQ Hedge Macro Strategy Tracker ETF, about 75 percent focused on emerging markets and 25 percent on global trends. The offering joins the IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF, which began trading in March and is up 17 percent.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Investment management company Legg Mason Inc. has launched a global multi-asset tactical allocation mutual fund named Legg Mason Permal Tactical Allocation Fund. The fund, which targets institutional and retail taxable and tax-exempt investors, will be managed by Legg Mason’s fund-of-hedge-funds affiliate, Permal Asset Management.
Legg Mason said that the fund is an opportunistic and diversified product, which seeks to benefit from any market condition and to outperform a traditional 60/30/10 (equity/fixed income/cash) portfolio over a medium-term time frame.
"Permal has an expertise in asset allocation and a deep global perspective and we believe they can find opportunities in these markets to deliver value to our clients." Matt Schiffman, Head of Americas Retail at Legg Mason said, "This is an innovative way to bring their fund of hedge fund expertise to traditional asset classes in a mutual fund offering."
The asset allocation strategy is designed to exploit perceived inefficiencies or imbalances in equity, fixed-income or other asset classes in any region or country, said the Baltimore, Maryland-based mutual fund group.
The fund will invest primarily in both passive and actively managed investment funds, to include specifically, affiliated and unaffiliated open-end mutual funds, unaffiliated closed-end mutual funds and exchange traded funds and notes, as well as cash equivalents and alternative investments.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
