Sydney-based Global Trading Strategies, established by three former Goldman Sachs JBWere Pty.PARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

Sydney-based Global Trading Strategies, established by three former Goldman Sachs JBWere Pty. Traders back in 2005 has decided to shut the fund and return money to its investors reported Bloomberg this week. The Aussie fund, after peaking with assets of over one billion dollars in 2008, had endured a year of negative returns which prompted the decision to cease trading on 31 July according to the firm’s Chief Operating Officer, Murray Chatfield. Trending markets, be they up or down, are good environments for hedge funds but not when they move sharply because managers are “trying to find a trend and stay with it”, opined Damien Hatfield, director at hedge fund adviser, Triple A Partners Australia. Global macro funds are finding it hard to navigate markets which are being affected less by economics and more by politics, the Eurozone debacle being a case in point. Chatfield was quoted as saying: “The principals decided that the current environment wasn’t conducive to their trading style and they thought it better to hand money back to investors.” He added, however, that a lot of investors didn’t want them to do it “but we thought it was the correct thing to do”. A courageous move and one that should be applauded: not all managers are willing to admit that the goalposts have changed and that it’s better to cut one’s losses. GTS was founded by Brett Allender, Andrew Peden and Karl Mayer.