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 – Hedge funds returned an average 5.2 percent in May, the best performance in more than nine years, as they attracted more money and global markets rallied, Eurekahedge Pte said.
The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index, tracking more than 2,000 funds, has advanced 9.2 percent this year, according to a preliminary report by the research firm based on the 27 percent of funds that reported May performance. The industry recorded net inflows for the first time in 10 months in May, gaining $1.5 billion, while total assets rose by $5 billion, the report said.
“Numbers of this magnitude clearly won’t last, but I do think the industry will have a very good year,” said Peter Douglas, principal of GFIA Pte, a Singapore-based hedge-fund consulting firm. “What we like at the moment is equity long- shorts, and Asia is an equity story.” Long-short equity funds bet on rising and falling stock prices.
Reuters Tokyo – Hedge funds are dipping their toes back into the dollar/yen options market after months of absence, betting that eventual interest rate tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve will help the greenback gain against the yen.
Dollar/yen’s implied volatility, a gauge of how much a currency pair is expected to move over a given period, has come down to levels not seen since before Lehman Brothers collapsed in mid-September, sending global markets into a tailspin.
The decline suggests market stress has eased substantially and investor confidence has risen after the battering dealt by the global financial crisis, but it also implies lessening demand for options to hedge against a further surge in the yen.
Forbes – In December, Forbes was a media partner to Markets Media, host of the Global Markets Summit inNew York City. Forbes Intelligent Investing Editor Michael Maiello moderated a hedge fund industry panel that included activist investors Clay Lifflander of Millcap Advisors and Stephen Roseman of Thesis Capital, along with Samuel Hocking, global head of sales for the prime brokerage at BNP Paribas and Kenneth Springer of Corporate Resolutions.
During the discussion, Hocking predicted a 30% failure rate for hedge funds in 2009, rising operating costs and higher margin requirements. Lifflander and Roseman discussed strategies for low-margin investing and the implication of hedge fund failures on shareholder activist strategies. Springer, a former FBI investigator and due diligence expert, revealed the increased scrutiny that hedge fund managers will have to bear.
Reuters – Barack Obama takes over as U.S. president on Tuesday with hopes riding high he can conjure
up a rescue that will jolt the world’s biggest economy back to life and contain the financial crisis ravaging global markets.
The first African-American to become U.S. president will take his oath against the backdrop of plunging world stock markets, prospects of a drawn-out U.S. and global downturn, a trillion dollar federal deficit and fears of more crippling bank losses.
BBC News- Hedge funds tend to be based well away from London’s financial hotspots such as the City and Canary Wharf, in districts such as Mayfair.
But his employer, Lionhart Investments, is based next door to the golf club in Wimbledon.
It is a relaxed environment on the edge of Wimbledon Common, where at least one mobile phone network has no signal at all, but do not let that fool you.
"I have a mobile phone that rings all the time – and on family holidays, it quite often becomes a source of contention," he says.
