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Bloomberg - Pengana Capital Ltd., a Sydney- based asset manager that oversees A$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion), aims to increase the amount of hedge fund assets that bet on market swings by six times in two years.
Pengana is seeking to grow assets managed by its Chicago- based volatility team to $2.5 billion from about $420 million currently, Russel Pillemer, co-founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview yesterday. Pengana’s Global Volatility Master Fund returned 19.3 percent last year, while the hedge fund industry fell an average 19 percent.
Bloomberg – Artradis Fund Management Pte., whose volatility funds posted the best returns among Asian hedge funds last year, is betting continued market swings will help them outperform again in 2009.
While volatility will decline to “more normal levels” from the records set in 2008, the funds will continue “to be able to take advantage of significant moves in markets,” said Julian Ings-Chambers, a managing director at Artradis, Singapore’s biggest hedge-fund firm.
The $2.4 billion Artradis AB2 Fund, managed by Stephen Diggle and Richard Magides, rose 35 percent last year, according to the firm. The $1.8 billion Artradis Barracuda Fund, which uses less borrowed money than the AB2, added 27 percent. The funds, which place wagers on price swings, had the highest returns among Asia-focused hedge funds that manage at least $500 million, according to Eurekahedge Pte., a Singapore-based data provider.
Minneapolis Star Tribune – Like most market watchers, last year’s participants in the Star Tribune Investor Roundtable failed to predict that 2008 would be a year of stomach-churning stock market declines, failed financial institutions, multibillion-dollar bailouts and credit markets as frozen as a Minnesota lake in January.
"I think everybody in the room knew there was more leverage, more speculation, more betting on the economy, but it amazes me that it got to this level," said Phil Dow, director of equity strategy at RBC Wealth Management.
But what the group of Twin Cities investment professionals did foresee a year ago was a period of unprecedented stock market volatility. The VIX index, a gauge of market swings, reached a record high this fall.
