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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Salus Alpha (SA) announced that their fund, ‘The Salus Alpha Directional Markets’ stood out from its peers in the Managed Futures space due to its unique approach.
The majority of the managed futures funds, SA said, invests systematically according to computer based trading models. A computer model typically uses different indicators to identify trends on the global financial markets. These models can be characterized as long-term and short-term operating models.
Most managed futures funds use long-term trend following models; this is the reason why most of the famous managed futures funds have had significantly negative performance since the beginning of the year 2009: they didn’t recognize the trend reversal in time.
The Approach of the Salus Alpha Directional Markets Fund differs significantly from competitors – Model Risk is minimized.
"Unlike other firms we do not trust in technical analysis but we forecast futures prices with precision to identify trends. In contrast to other managed futures models the Salus Alpha Directional Markets controls risk on position, sector and portfolio level. Daily risk balancing positions the fund right in stormy weather or trend less markets." SA said.
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Bloomberg ‘ Asia Genesis Asset Management Pte, whose Japan Macro Fund has outperformed peers, is closing down its two hedge funds and returning money to investors.
“I need some time to recuperate from weak health,” founder Chua Soon Hock, 50, said in an e-mailed reply to queries from Bloomberg News. “In past years, I have been doing 18-hour workdays with very active positions’ management to keep downside volatility of funds very low. I cannot do that with my current health conditions.”
The Singapore-based hedge-fund firm will return all money invested in the $761 million Japan Macro Fund and $12 million in the Asia Genesis Equity Fund to investors by mid-September, Chua said on Aug. 14.
Philadelphia Inquirer – The University of Pennsylvania’s endowment fund lost a lot less than other big Ivy League schools during the grim financial year ended June 30.
That’s a switch for the better at the West Philadelphia campus of the city’s biggest private employer, which trailed its peers during the financial-asset inflation of the mid-2000s.
Penn had ranked last among the 25 largest university endowments in the year ended June 30, 2008, with a 6 percent decline, according to the yearly performance numbers posted by the National Association of College and University Business Administrators.
Bloomberg – Marcos Duarte, co-founder of the $1 billion hedge fund Polo Capital Gestao de Fundos Ltda., is buying more Brazilian homebuilder shares even after the stocks more than doubled this year.
Duarte said the Rio de Janeiro-based firm is buying real estate developers Klabin Segall SA and EZ Tec Empreendimentos e Participacoes SA, adding to bets on the industry that helped his 659 million-real ($348 million) Polo Norte Multimercado LP fund outperform 96 percent of its peers in 2009.
Bloomberg – Asian hedge funds are attracting growing interest from investors as managers focusing on the region outperform global peers, said Andrew Hill, director of prime finance for Asia-Pacific markets at Citigroup Inc.
“There are pockets of proprietary money looking to be put to work in Asia,” Singapore-based Hill said in a June 12 interview. “There is going to be an outsized investment back into Asia. Some of the big pensions are going to be looking at Asia; it’s coming onto the radar screens.”
Asia-focused hedge funds gained 12.4 percent in the first five months of the year, outpacing returns in the U.S. and Europe, according to Eurekahedge Pte. That’s a reversal from last year, when clients withdrew almost $24 billion from the region’s hedge funds as managers posted bigger losses than global peers, the Singapore-based industry data provider reported.
Reuters Hong Kong – Credit Suisse on Wednesday said a top UBS AG prime brokerage banker will join the bank as head of prime services for Asia-Pacific, based in Hong Kong.
Since 2007, Matt Pecot was the Americas head of prime brokerage services for UBS, having held a similar Asia-Pacific role with UBS from 2004 and 2007.
Credit Suisse, under less financial pressure than rival UBS, is in a position in Asia and elsewhere to poach top bankers from its peers.
Bloomberg – Australian hedge funds returned an average 2.1 percent in March, beating the 1.3 percent profit of their global peers.
The Australian Fund Monitors Index, which tracks the performance of more than 200 hedge funds managed from within the country, rebounded from a 1.6 percent drop in February, according to a report by Australian Fund Monitors based on 42 percent of the funds reporting. The S&P/ASX 200 Index jumped 7.1 percent in March while the MSCI World Index advanced 7.2 percent.
Bloomberg – Theodoro Messa’s Paineiras Hedge FIM hedge fund beat 96 percent of its peers this year on bets Brazilian bond yields will fall as the central banks slashes borrowing costs to shore up Latin America’s largest economy.
Messa is buying bonds and avoiding stocks because the global recession will persist longer than investors expect, requiring Brazilian policy makers to deepen interest rate cuts, he said. He predicts zero economic growth for Brazil in 2009.
Reuters – One of the bizarre effects of Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion fraud is that it has boosted the performance of one group of hedge funds when measured against their peers, industry insiders said.
At least one major index, the CS/Tremont equity market neutral index, has been distorted by the failures of three large funds or fund groups which were index components: Kingate, Fairfield Sentry and Rye Select.
"The values of these funds have been taken to zero and we have no plans to restate them, nor to create additional indexes which exclude these funds," said Elaine Bourke, an associate at Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Index.
DST International – One group of hedge funds has had its performance boosted in comparison to its peers as a result of the Bernard Madoff scandal, according to a number of industry insiders.
Due to the failures of three large funds or fund groups – Fairfield Sentry, Kingate and Rye Select – which were components in the Credit Suisse/Tremont equity market neutral index, the listing has been distorted.
As such, the surviving funds are able to claim they have outperformed the index’s benchmark, Reuters notes.
Telegraph.co.uk – When Andy Hornby, the former chief executive of HBOS, was asked by the Treasury Select Committee to detail his banking qualifications he couldn’t. Like his fellow bankers, Sir Fred Goodwin, Sir Tom McKillop and Lord Stevenson, being questioned by the panel, Mr Hornby, had to admit publicly that he held no formal banking qualifications. However unlike his fellow bankers, Mr Hornby’s admission held one important qualification.
"I have an MBA from Harvard," he told the MPs, "where I specialised in all the finance courses including financial services."
With the question about qualifications almost certain to come up, Mr Hornby’s answer was almost certainly prepared. By referring not just to his MBA, but also to where he got it from, Mr Hornby knew he was putting himself firmly at the front of the pedagogical pecking order. Harvard prides itself on consistently being the highest-ranked university; Mr Hornby no doubt prides himself on being the highest-achieving student out of his year, coming top out of 800 peers.
Reuters – Asia-focused funds suffered their worst ever year in 2008, underperforming their peers in the West, as markets cratered and investors demanded their money back.
This year will be marked by consolidation around more established players and a more conservative approach to using debt to drive investment returns. Investors will also insist on greater transparency and closer attention from fund managers.
