The Greenwich Investable Hedge Fund Indices produced mixed results in December, another volatile month for equity prices. The monthly and quarterly redemption Composite Indices fell by 0.46% and 0.27%, respectively, for the month.
The Managed Futures Index was the best performer, gaining 2%, followed by the Investable Arbitrage Index, which gained 0.41%. The Greenwich Long-Short Equity Investable Index also fell by 0.38% compared to a decline of 0.12% in the MSCI World Equity Index and a gain of 1.02% on the S&P 500 Total Return Index. For the year, the Long-Short Credit and Arbitrage Investable Indices produced the most favorable results, gaining 6.33% and 2.71%, respectively………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Christopher Foster is known as the architect of sentiment strategy. He is the CEO of Blackheath Fund Management, a managed futures advisory firm (CTA) based in Toronto, and serves as the portfolio manager for their sentiment program. He began developing his strategy during his time with Friedberg Mercantile Group (FMG) where he analyzed crowd behavior and sentiment indicators for making trades.
Blackheath represents one of a small group of funds that utilize sentiment indicators in their strategy. However, the firm’s sole focus on sentiment sets them apart. Typically sentiment indicators are simply additional tools in a broader strategy………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Earlier this month, in a ninth-floor conference room of the Northern Trust bank in Chicago, an unlikely assembly of futures industry executives, regulators and customers discussed the fallout from MF Global’s collapse.
The closed-door meeting illustrated a fundamental shift under way in the futures industry: financial firms, ordinarily loath to accept regulation, are now spearheading efforts for new oversight as they try to heal the black eye left by MF Global and the disappearance of $1.2 billion in its customers’ money………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Investors have gotten a modest break in January from financial markets moving in lockstep, as they employ a variety of strategies to help diversify portfolios. The persistent 2011 trend of markets trading in either risk-on or risk-off mode crippled returns for active managers in particular, with just one in four beating the benchmark indexes they use to gauge the effectiveness of their strategies.
For vexed investors, the best strategy is to find a variety of assets, such as commodities, managed futures, real estate investment trusts and alternative funds that have shown a low correlation to the broader market moves………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Large managed futures funds, including hedge funds, in the past week increased their bullish bets in Comex gold and silver futures, according to data released this afternoon by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Managers bought 8,238 long contracts in the week ended Tuesday, while selling 1,721 short contracts, or bets on lower prices. As a result, managed futures funds and other large speculators raised their net long position 8.5% to 126,937 contracts, from 116,978 a week earlier. The managed fund net long position represents around 12.6 million ounces of gold………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The volatile markets remain alternative investments’ best friend, as investors increasingly look for ways to hedge their bets against gut-wrenching price swings. Seventy eight new alternative-oriented mutual funds were rolled out last year, bringing the total number of such funds to 338 as of year-end 2011. And that number is expected to keep rising, according to industry observers.
Assets in alternative mutual funds leaped roughly 20% last year, to $122 billion, notes Nadia Papagiannis, Morningstar’s alternative investment strategist………………………………………..Full Article: Source

BlueCrest Capital Management, one of Europe’s biggest hedge fund firms, is looking to raise more than 150 million pounds ($235 million) for a new listed feeder fund into its computer-driven BlueTrend fund, a source familiar with the matter said.
So-called managed futures funds try to make money by latching onto trends in global futures markets. BlueTrend was one of the few hedge funds to profit in a dire 2008 for the industry, gaining 42.8 percent………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Morningstar cites more than 300 mutual funds that now offer exposure to alternative strategies that have low market correlation, like equity long/short, market-neutral and managed futures. The category had nearly $132 billion in assets by 2011’s end, a substantial total even though it trails well behind the hedge-fund industry’s roughly $2 trillion.
Nadia Papagiannis, director of alternative-fund research at Morningstar, explains that properly managed hedge-fund strategies can deliver low correlation to the market, “but only through mutual funds can they offer daily redemptions,” which meet investors’ growing demand for liquidity………………………………………..Full Article: Source

U.S. college endowments are still struggling to recover from losses triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., as investments in hedge funds have lagged behind traditional strategies such as stocks.
The average endowment’s allocation to alternative strategies such as hedge funds, private equity, real estate and commodities climbed to 53 percent from 52 percent the previous year. Commodities and managed futures returned the most among alternative investments, advancing 26 percent, while private equity rose 19 percent………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Gold traders are bullish for a fourth consecutive week, betting that the Federal Reserve’s pledge to keep interest rates low until late 2014 will extend the metal’s best start to a year in more than three decades.
Nine of 15 surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to gain next week. The value of gold held in exchange-traded products jumped $3.9 billion on Jan. 25, the most since October, as the central bank laid the groundwork for a possible viagra round of asset purchases, data compiled by Bloomberg show………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is fixating childishly over Dodd-Frank Act rules while ignoring its traditional responsibility for overseeing futures markets, Commissioner Scott O’Malia said.
“The commission has acted like a little child, abandoning the old toy and ‘swapping’ them out for the new,” O’Malia, one of two Republicans on the five-member panel, said in remarks prepared for a conference at New York Law School. “It has concentrated on swaps rulemaking, while averting its gaze from the futures markets and their developments.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

The European Union on Wednesday blocked the Deutsche Boerse’s planned merger with NYSE Euronext, a $10 billion deal that would have created the world’s largest financial exchange operator.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, said it was ruling against the merger because the combined exchange would have controlled more than 90 percent of the trading in European derivatives — complex but highly profitable financial products that allow investors to bet on changes in interest rates or the price of oil………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Way back in October 2008, the European Commission said it wanted to regulate over-the-counter derivatives trading. Then in July 2009, the commission said it wanted to regulate over-the-counter derivatives trading.
Then in October 2009, the commission said it wanted to regulate over-the-counter derivatives trading. Then in July 2010, the commission said it was about to propose to regulate over-the-counter derivatives trading………………………………………..Full Article: Source