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An income producing asset class with the potential to pay up to nine per cent a year has been launched in the UK.
The Secured Life Fund, designed for large pension fund and institutional investors, is constructed to produce regular cash flows without the volatility of stock markets or other traditional benchmarks.
Investors into the fund will be able to choose from either a five, seven or ten year investment period, each of which will provide fixed returns paid annually in arrears. Returns range from eight per cent for the five year bond, 8.5 per cent over seven years, rising
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued a notice of non-approval of a rule amendment submitted by the Options Clearing Corporation.
The OCC rule amendment would have treated foreign currency contracts where the exercise price is fixed at a nominal amount, such as one cent, as securities options, provided that the CFTC took the position that such contracts may be traded and cleared as such.
The CFTC found that the contracts are the economic and functional equivalents of foreign currency futures contracts and are not bona fide options.
The Swiss hedge fund industry is well positioned but the implications of the Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers are still unclear, the Swiss Funds Association says.
At an SFA media conference, Hans-Jörg Baumann, chairman of the Alternative Investment Council and chief executive and chairman of Swiss Capital Alternative Investments, addressed the current situation for hedge funds.
In the first five months of this year, the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index lost 0.26 per cent while the HFRI Fund of Hedge Fund Index slipped back 0.54 per cent. Over the same period the MSCI World Index lost 7.59 per cent,
Strategic Investments Group and Permal Group have launched the Active Trading Fund, a Ucits III absolute return multi-manager fund.
Deutsche Bank collaborated in the development of the fund, which launched on 14 May with USD250m.
It is the first alternative Ucits multi-adviser fund to invest entirely in dedicated separately managed accounts.
Each account is managed by an active trading fund manager and is owned and set up by the fund, as well as being housed with the fund’s custodian. There is no commingling with other investors. The accounts are all Ucits III compliant, offering weekly liquidity, full transparency and with
Having reduced its exposure to risk in global equities on 21 April 2010, HSBC Private Bank is maintaining its highest conviction overweight in hedge funds in the belief that hedge funds are well positioned to profit from the current market conditions and higher volatility.
Fredrik Nerbrand, head of global strategy at HSBC Private Bank, says: “In contrast to the majority of 2009 in which investors were rewarded for taking on risk, we believe 2010 will be a rather different environment – a year of differentiation where equity and bond markets are likely to be lower than they have been since
Hedge fund strategies’ performance retreated in May as both equity and bond markets struggled amid the European debt crisis and its effect on the global recovery.
The Lipper Hedge Fund Composite Index posted a loss of 2.97 per cent, with all sub-strategies except dedicated short bias (+1.0 per cent) finishing in the red for the month.
Long bias (-4.65 per cent) was the worst performing strategy, bettered somewhat by multi-strategies (-4.07 per cent).
Many trend-following managers experienced a bad month because of a trend reversal in commodities and on cross-market correlation infecting a number of asset classes.
Long bias and
The European Energy Exchange and the derivatives exchange Eurex will expand trading in European Union Allowance futures from 30 June with contracts which will reach maturity from the third commitment period of the European Emission Trading System.
The third commitment period, which will begin on 1 January 2013, was specified as early as upon the adoption of the European Climate and Renewable Energies Package by the European Parliament in December 2008.
Subject to approval by the EEX Exchange Council, EUA futures for delivery in 2013 and 2014 will be available in the trading system as of the end of June.
Verno Investment Management has been launched as a specialist fund manager in the capital markets of Russia and the former Soviet Union.
The founder, Dimitri Kryukov, is an experienced investment manager and trader in the Russian market.
Kryukov, who will be chief investment officer of the new company, is joined by his former colleagues at Kazimir Partners: Karen Clarke, partner and chief executive, Michelle Alifanz Carson, partner and head of business development and investor relations, and Bruce Bower, who will join the firm in August as partner portfolio management.
The team believes that there is a gap in the market
RBC Wealth Management, part of Royal Bank of Canada, has hired Tracy Maeter as head of investments, British Isles.
Maeter will be based in London and will be responsible for oversight of RBC Wealth Management’s discretionary and advisory investments platforms in the British Isles.
Maeter joins RBC from HSBC in London, where she was head of investors. During her five-year tenure there, she also held the positions of team head, sales management and team head, high net worth.
Maeter has also held positions at JP Morgan and a number of consulting firms.
Paul Patterson, head of RBC Wealth Management, British
Credit Suisse has launched Onyx, an algorithmic trading platform designed specifically for fixed income.
The platform gives clients electronic access to trade directly with Credit Suisse.
The initial Onyx offering is a suite of algorithmic execution for pair strategies between fixed income futures and cash US Treasuries. These are the same algorithms that were designed by and have been used by the Credit Suisse trading desk for several years.
For the first time, clients have electronic access straight from their desktops to trade cash US Treasuries directly with Credit Suisse, a market maker in fixed income. While previously clients
