West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Credit Suisse announced the launch of a new Global Macro Replication Index which aims to capture the risk/return characteristics of the Credit Suisse/Tremont Global Macro Hedge Fund Index.

The new index enables investors to gain liquid, transparent insight into the global macro hedge fund sector. 

"Due to a frequent lack of transparency, hedge fund investors found themselves exposed to numerous unforeseen risks in 2008, and problems were only exacerbated when liquidity dried up just as investors needed it most. Yet despite the drawbacks, hedge fund returns remain positive relative to equities and hedge funds continue to serve as an effective portfolio diversifier. Many investors have been left seeking liquid, transparent and cost effective solutions for gaining access to the asset class," Credit Suisse delcared.

Dr. Jordan Drachman, Head of Research for Credit Suisse Alternative Beta Strategies, said, “In the wake of current investor sentiment, replication strategies are gaining in popularity for their ability to provide similar risk/return characteristics to a well diversified portfolio of hedge funds, while avoiding certain drawbacks of hedge fund investing such as illiquidity, lack of transparency and headline risk.” Drachman added, “We are currently seeing increased interest in the Global Macro sector, as the strategy has a history of producing positive performance during market downturns and has been the top performing hedge fund sector since the inception of the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index in 1994.”

The Global Macro Replication Index joins the existing Long/Short Equity Replication Index to become the second in a suite of Alternative Index Replication (AIR) products. Together, the indices offer insight to two of the largest and most popular hedge fund sectors in the current market environment.

Professor Bill Fung, a key research advisor to Credit Suisse’s alternative beta efforts, stated “In developing a replication index, it is imperative that researchers understand the in-depth intricacies of hedge fund sectors and individual manager performance.” Fung went on to say, “The team has access to superior data through the Credit
Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index. Together with regular contact with hedge fund managers, this combination provides practical insight into the behavior of hedge fund strategies and adds a level of fundamental analysis to the quantitative construction of the Index. This is particularly important in the Global Macro space which is dominated by managers that engage in dynamic strategies in an ever changing market environment; and these managers have done so successfully during very challenging times historically as well as more recently.”

Index values are finalized daily and quoted on Bloomberg under the symbol AIRI. Performance, descriptions, statistics and downloadable price history can be found on the newly launched Credit Suisse Alternative Beta website,www.credit-suisse.com/alternativebeta.

Credit Suisse has helped pioneer the measurement of alternative beta for more than a decade. By bringing together indexing expertise, an academic partnership with key research advisors and extensive global resources, Credit Suisse continues to lead the industry in developing alternative index replication products.

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Javno – Last week, New York University and Carnegie Mellon sent a new class of math whizzes out into a profession that is both blamed for the financial collapse and charged with preventing it happening again.

Many of these so-called quantitative analysts, or "quants," graduating from elite financial engineering courses will end up writing computer programs that handle an ever greater share of market trading.

Because some of their mathematical models failed to take into account factors that later turned out to be crucial, quants have been blamed for compounding risk and exacerbating the crash in financial markets.

But far from going into decline, those with financial engineering degrees are still in demand as hedge funds and banks seek ways to measure previously unforeseen risks and factor them into their models.

The profession’s reputation took a beating in August 2007, when some quant funds — which try to beat the market by crunching vast amounts of data at lightning speed — lost a third of their value in a matter of days.

Many blamed the math commandos for failing to factor in extreme events, in this case unprecedented numbers of home mortgage foreclosures.

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Tags: account factors, carnegie mellon, commandos, computer programs, engineering courses, extreme events, financial collapse, financial engineering, financial-markets, home mortgage, lightning speed, math whizzes, mathematical-models, mortgage foreclosures, new-york-university, quant funds, quantitative analysts, unforeseen risks, unprecedented numbers