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War dominates markets. The US-Iran conflict continued to define conditions across hedge fund strategies this week, forcing crowded positions to unwind, sending crude oil sharply higher, and compelling fund managers to reassess risk models built for calmer environments. Yet as the chaos deepens, a clear divide has emerged between winners and losers - and a handful of managers are doing exactly what they were designed to do.

In what may be the most timely Opalesque Exclusive of the year, Munich-based quant manager Amfileon is profiled this week as markets experience precisely the kind of shock its strategy was built to exploit. Founded by Sebastian Helmensdorfer, a PhD mathematician with over a decade in quantitative finance, Amfileon runs a statistical arbitrage strategy across liquid equity index futures that has delivered 23.6% annualised returns with a Sharpe ratio of 2.8 in high-volatility regimes - defined as periods when the VIX exceeds 21. Since going live in October 2023, the fund has posted 7.7% annualised returns overall with just 4.9% volatility, a Sharpe of 1.6, a beta of -0.03, and a maximum drawdown of 4.9%. In 2025 the fund returned 9.1%. The strategy runs eight active sub-strategies simultaneously, holding 500 to 2,000 positions with holding periods from one hour upward - genuinely market-neutral and structurally designed to accelerate when others are selling. For allocators rethinking portfolio construction in the current environment, this is required reading.