All Alternatives articles – Page 78

  • News

    2008 was a bad year for pressured hedge funds

    2009-02-17T14:15:00Z

    [15:15 CET 17-02] GLOBAL – Almost all hedge fund strategies posted their worst losses in 2008, according to a report by French business school Edhec.

  • News

    Eumedion seeks end to short-selling bans

    2009-02-10T15:00:00Z

    [16:00 CET 10-02] EUROPE - Eumedion, the Nethelands-based corporate governance forum for institutional investors, has called on European governments and supervisors to lift the remaining short-selling bans.

  • News

    Marsden goes back to his roots at Mercer

    2009-02-03T15:00:00Z

    [16:00 CET 03-02] EUROPE – Robert Marsden has made an internal shift from Mercer’s multi-manager operation and has moved back into the investment research department he left less than two years ago.

  • News

    Pension funds expect hedge fund losses

    2009-02-03T13:00:00Z

    [14:00 CET 03-02] EUROPE - Almost three quarters of surveyed pension funds expect to see a negative net-of-fee performance of more than 5% on their hedge fund investments for 2008, suggests IPE research.

  • News

    Romania allows alternatives in pensions

    2009-02-02T15:00:00Z

    ROMANIA – Pension funds in Romania are now allowed to invest in private equity and commodities – to some extent.

  • Harness the winds of change
    Features

    Harness the winds of change

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    Ben Funk, Tzvety Petrova, and Dominik Nagly of Liongate Capital argue that recent unprecedented volatility can create opportunities for carefully selected hedge fund strategies

  • Features

    Month of heavy losses

    February 2009 (Magazine)

  • Features

    Markets severely buffeted

    February 2009 (Magazine)

  • A driving interest in  convertible hybrids
    Features

    A driving interest in convertible hybrids

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    Convertibles are on the agenda. They played a leading role in financing the US railroad boom of the start of the 20th century, and in Japan in the 1980s when the countr y’s issuance represented 40% of the global convertible market. Bank recapitalisation will involve them. Goldman Sach’s agreement with ...

  • Features

    Down to nothing

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    US President Obama has assumed control of a US economy beset by severe economic woes. With companies going bust, factories closing, businesses retrenching, jobs being lost at an unprecedented rate, consumer spending dropping like a stone, house prices tumbling, and homes repossessed, Obama’s task is both monumental and unenviable. Such ...

  • Signs of a year of eastern promise
    Features

    Signs of a year of eastern promise

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    Joseph Mariathasan looks at the economic conditions that have made investing in Asian, and particularly Chinese, private equity favourable

  • Minus five is the new zero
    Features

    Minus five is the new zero

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    Absolute return strategies do not always produce absolute returns, and alternative investments are not always decorrelated from the mainstream. Long/short investors do not always have skill in shorting, let alone the long. Convertible arbitrageurs are not always able to arbitrage their convertibles. Leveraged strategies have seen their leverage dry up ...

  • Hedging in practice
    Features

    Hedging in practice

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    The focus of liability driven strategies has so far largely been on interest rate and inflation risk. Solutions to longevity risk have been slow both in creation and take-up, finds Nina Röhrbein

  • Features

    Trend-following slows losses

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    December offered some respite to the hedge fund industry at large from the string of losses seen in the last six months, with the composite Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index finishing the month up 0.9%. Funds of funds, however, returned -0.7% on average. December has traditionally been a positive month for ...

  • Features

    A torrid year

    February 2009 (Magazine)

    After three months of significant losses, the stock markets managed a positive return (+1.06%) in December, with volatility remaining high (40%), albeit down to two-thirds of November’s level. Over the year, the S&P500 index registered a record loss of 37%. Once again, the commodities market registered a double-digit loss (-10.65%), ...

  • News

    Madoff dangers were no news to investors – Edhec

    2009-01-28T14:50:00Z

    [15:50 CET 28-01] GLOBAL – Hedge fund investors were dissatisfied with issues of transparency on liquidity and operational risk exposure even before Bernard Madoff’s ponzi scheme scandal came to light, suggests research from French business school Edhec.

  • News

    Risk not rewarded in the medium-term

    2009-01-27T14:00:00Z

    [15:00 CET 27-01] SWITZERLAND – Risk in Pensionskassen portfolios has not been rewarded over a longer period, Credit Suisse has claimed, while State Street has calculated pensionskassen saw an average 2008 return of -16.83%.

  • News

    Pensions funds opt to raise TRS collateral

    2009-01-22T11:00:00Z

    [12:00 CET 22-01] EUROPE – Pensions funds are likely to be paying slightly higher for passive investments since the collapse of Lehman Brothers if using synthethic replication, but are choosing to do by over-collateralising their total return swaps, according to officials at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

  • News

    AP7 mulls more alpha centres

    2009-01-21T14:45:00Z

    [15:45 CET 21-01] SWEDEN – The SEK74bn (€6.9bn) Swedish pension fund Sjunde AP-Fonden (AP7) is planning to review its pure alpha investments to see if it can add more of its ‘alpha centres’.