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CNN Money – Money managers must offer new portfolios and keep cutting costs to survive in an era where frightened investors prefer safer fixed-income funds to stock and hedge funds, a report released Monday showed.
Badly bruised by last year’s financial crisis when tumbling markets and investor redemptions shrank global assets 18 percent to $48.6 trillion, asset managers face more tough times in 2009 and the years ahead, The Boston Consulting Group wrote in its seventh annual asset management industry survey.
Profits will shrivel again, likely falling to 30 percent or less this year from 34 percent at the end of 2008 and 38 percent at the end of 2007, the consultants forecast.
Journalism.co.uk – The Financial Times has appointed Sam Jones as hedge fund correspondent. In his new role, Jones will be in charge of covering the global hedge fund industry.
"Hedge funds are in a state of crisis: they are hugely secretive and facing extremely tough times as governments move in with new regulation and banks pull back their lending operations," he told Journalism.co.uk.
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.
TheStreet.com – "Desperate times call for temperate measures" might be a (corrupted) saying that describes a prudent approach to the maelstrom of the stock market.
Mass redemptions resulting from turmoil in the hedge fund industry are a major factor in the market’s outsized swings in recent weeks. So it might seem ironic that three of the highest-rated mutual funds, as measured by TheStreet.com Ratings, are essentially hedge funds for Everyman.
Reuters – In the past month, traders could have shown up on Wall Street at 3 p.m. and not have missed much.
The last hour, even the last min utes, of trading seemed to be the only ones that mattered in October. But the days of one-hour markets may be waning, at least for now.
Traders say the intensity of these extreme late-day swings — 443 points on average in the "witching hour" for the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI in October — could let up as some of the so-called forced selling abates.
"I don’t think the late-day volatility will be as evident this month," said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams in New York.
Boston Globe - Hedge funds usually thrive when markets turn volatile. But even these fast-money investors are struggling to cope with the wild swings in the markets, raising concern that some may not survive.
Even before the Bush administration proposed its vast bailout for financial institutions, the hedge funds – those secretive, sometimes volatile investment vehicles for the rich – were on course for their worst year on record. The average fund is down nearly 5 percent so far this year.
One major hedge fund investor said he had started to buy Morgan Stanley at $23 on Wednesday, convinced the rumors of Morgan Stanley’s demise were unfounded. But as the stock began to plummet, he canceled his trade and watched with amazement as the stock sank to a low of $12 on Thursday.
Boston Globe – Hedge funds usually thrive when markets turn volatile. But even these fast-money investors are struggling to cope with the wild swings in the markets, raising concern that some may not survive.
Even before the Bush administration proposed its vast bailout for financial institutions, the hedge funds – those secretive, sometimes volatile investment vehicles for the rich – were on course for their worst year on record. The average fund is down nearly 5 percent so far this year.
One major hedge fund investor said he had started to buy Morgan Stanley at $23 on Wednesday, convinced the rumors of Morgan Stanley’s demise were unfounded. But as the stock began to plummet, he canceled his trade and watched with amazement as the stock sank to a low of $12 on Thursday.
CNNMoney.com- Oil and natural gas prices have soared to new highs this year, but most energy hedge funds are having trouble turning a profit in their trades.
Energy hedge fund managers interviewed by Hedge Fund Trades cited various reasons for their weak performance this year. Some have been on the wrong side of oil prices swings, while others have suffered from positions in oil companies and refiners that produced lackluster returns.
