Tuesday, June 16, 2009

 

Managed Futures Rebound 2.08% in May; Barclay CTA Index Down 0.54% in 2009

FAIRFIELD, Iowa, June 16, 2009– Managed futures traders performed well in May, gaining 2.08% according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge. Year-to- date, the Index remains down 0.54%.

“Commodity markets, led by the energy sector, rallied strongly during the month,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge. “A weakening US Dollar provided support to the rally and presented a sustained trend that currency traders could profit from.”


Read the entire Hedge Fund Press Release by clicking here.

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Monday, June 15, 2009

 

Barclay Hedge Fund Index Up 5.77% in May; Hedge Funds Gain 12.47% in Three Months

FAIRFIELD, Iowa, June 15, 2009– Hedge funds gained 5.77% in May according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The Barclay Hedge Fund Index is now up 10.75% in 2009.

“Equity markets in both developed and emerging countries saw share prices rally in May,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.

“A recent Wall Street Journal article attributed the rise to trillions of dollars of bailout money finding its way into financial markets.”


Read the entire Hedge Fund Press Release by clicking here.

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In the Midst of Market Meltdown, CTAs Gain 14% in Best Year Since 1990

Investors Have Redeemed $40 Billion from Oct-08 to March-09 in Spite of Robust Returns


From the Second Quarter, 2009 issue of Barclay Managed Funds Report. The full report also includes 24 hedge fund and managed futures performance ranking tables and in-depth manager profiles. Subscribe. View Roundtables from back issues.


2008 was a year not soon enough forgotten as a continued global banking crisis and deepening recession propelled the financial markets toward near lockdown. With market volatility at historical highs and liquidity close to nonexistent, there were few places for investors to hide as the equity markets lost nearly one-third of their value, investment-grade and high-yield credits both ended the year in negative territory, non-US markets followed suit, and even the once skyrocketing commodities markets plummeted. Obviously, directional investing was a painful experience, unless you were among the brave few to maintain a net-short portfolio.

Arbitrageurs fared just as poorly, as every imaginable spread relationship was confounded by global deleveraging and a flight to safety. Yet through all of the chaos and value erosion, one segment of the alternative investment universe forged ahead, redefining the concept of uncorrelated returns.

Enter Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs), which as a group, earned a +14% return in 2008. While results varied, no matter how you sliced it and diced it – discretionary, systematic, focused, diversified, etcetera – most managers defied the investment universe and posted positive returns for the year. So with a phenomenal year behind them and some evidence of the beginning of normalcy in the world’s capital markets, is there still a case for allocating to CTAs over the next 12 to 18 months? To answer this question and review the CTA landscape in more detail, we’ve assembled a panel of distinguished and seasoned practitioners. Our panel includes:

Matthew Beddall, Winton Capital Management
Kevin M. Heerdt, Campbell & Company, Inc.
Jaffray Woodriff, Quantitative Investment Management, LLC.



The complete article will be available on the BarclayHedge.com website in August 2009. Subscribe to receive each issue of the Barclay Managed Funds Report at it comes out.

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Friday, June 12, 2009

 

FoFs Lose 22% in 2008, Worst Year on Record Sparks Large Outflows

Liquidity Issues, Redemption Gates, and High Profile Ponzi Schemes Spook Investors


From the First Quarter, 2009 issue of Barclay Managed Funds Report. The full report also includes 24 hedge fund and managed futures performance ranking tables and in-depth manager profiles. Subscribe. View Roundtables from back issues.


For those who crave excitement in the form of financial market volatility, 2008 was the year for you. We witnessed a crisis of historical proportions emanating from an overheated real estate market and snowballing into a mortgage and credit calamity that triggered a global liquidity freeze, which in turn impacted almost every asset class with any sort of risk premium. Exciting enough?

Well, it seems that this was just the perfect recipe to unhinge every single Ponzi scheme that has been lying dormant for the last decade, and enough to shake the hedge fund industry to its core. For the year ended 2008, hedge funds lost 21.35% as measured by the Barclay Hedge Index, the worst annual loss in the recorded history of hedge fund performance. These losses, combined with a mass investor exodus from hedge funds resulted in a net decrease in assets under management of approximately $800 billion to $1 trillion for the year.

As we view the universe today, there exists a great dichotomy between the recent market impact on single strategy hedge funds and funds of funds. In particular, most single strategy hedge funds have reported significant liquidations and have been instituting gates to cope with liquidations in an orderly fashion. Many institutional quality funds of funds, however, report little in the way of meaningful redemptions.

How is it that funds of funds have weathered the storm? Is there another shoe left to drop in this segment of the market, or is the vast opportunity set that has been created by the market debacle enough to keep funds of funds investors on board? To address these and other critical issues presently facing fund of funds we have assembled the following panel:

Rob Christian, Financial Risk Management
Fabio Savoldelli, Optima Fund Management
Scott C. Schweighauser, Harris Alternatives, LLC





The complete article is now available on BarclayHedge.com. Subscribe to receive each issue of the Barclay Managed Funds Report at it comes out.

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Alternative Investments through Managed Account Platforms: Not Exactly the Holy Grail

Check back each month to read the latest proprietary study addressing issues in due diligence and risk analysis.

The study seeks to highlight some key considerations for allocators who are confronted with the question: “Should I invest through a managed account or straight into the fund?”

Read the full study here.


Hedge Fund Due Diligence Reports

BarclayHedge and SwissAnalytics have teamed up to offer hedge fund and CTA due diligence. As a BarclayHedge member receive an exclusive 10% discount on your first Hedge Fund Due Diligence Report from SwissAnalytics.

SwissAnalytics offers a comprehensive approach to systematically score each fund on more than 140 qualitative risk factors. SwissAnalytics researchers conduct full-service due diligence on the entire range of hedge fund and CTA strategies and managers located anywhere in the world in a timely and cost-effective manner.

To download a sample Due Diligence Report, simply fill out this short request form.

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Skill, Luck and the Multi-Product Firm: Evidence from Hedge Funds

By Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, University of California, Berkeley and Evan Rawley, University of Pennsylvania

Their paper finds that both idiosyncratic performance shocks and systematic differences in skill influence diversification decisions.


Download the full article here.

From the June 2009 issue of Barclay's Insider Report. Accredited investors can subscribe to the full newsletter for free.

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April Commodity Trading Advisor and Hedge Fund Performance

Commodity Trading Advisor performance for April as measured by the Barclay CTA Index averaged -0.72%. May's estimate based on the performance of the Barclay BTOP50 Index is 1.34%.

Hedge funds had a positive month in April reflected by gaines in sixteen of our eighteen indices. The average return for the 2,524 hedge funds (ex. FoFs) that have so far reported an April return is 4.21%. The estimates for May, along with the number of funds reporting for each of our 18 sectors can be found at the link below. These indices are being continually updated as current returns for the underlying hedge funds are recorded into our system. As of this writing, 18 of 18 hedge fund sectors are showing positive returns for May.

Hedge Fund Indices Managed Futures Indices

From the June 2009 issue of Barclay's Insider Report. Accredited investors can subscribe to the full newsletter for free.

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How Far are Hedge Funds from their High-Water Marks?

The topical study from the June 2009 issue of The Hedge Fund Flow Report. Gain insight into industry trends and hedge fund asset flows before you make your next important decision.


The average hedge fund in the BarclayHedge database gained 4.9% from January to April following a 24.2% loss in 2008. We believe the average distance from high-water mark is a good complement to hedge funds returns. The average distance from the high-water mark is especially important to predict hedge fund revenues because most hedge funds can only collect their performance fees if it is exceeded. Also, the average distance from the high-water mark is a good indication of the time it will take for hedge fund investors to get back even.

In this study, we found that:


Accredited investors can read the entire article for free.


From the June 2009 issue of The Hedge Fund Flow Report. The Hedge Fund Flow Report combines the accuracy of the BarclayHedge database with the analytical insight of TrimTabs Investment Research. The report is generated by TrimTabs Investment Research using the most current data on thousands of hedge funds. An annual subscription includes 12 monthly updates as well as a spreadsheet containing historical flow aggregates by category.

To download a free sample of the entire TrimTabs Hedge Fund Flow Report, simply fill out this short request form.

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