Managed futures gained 0.57% in March according to the Barclay CTA Index compiled by BarclayHedge. The Index is up 1.07% year to date. “A decoupling of US growth from global markets and aggressive easing by the Bank of Japan provided the impetus for a profitable month,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of BarclayHedge.

The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index finished up 1.21 per cent for the month of March, with nine of the 10 sub-strategies in positive territory. Event driven (2.11 per cent), managed futures (1.74 per cent) and long/short equity (1.38 per cent) led the way while dedicated short bias was the only sub-strategy to record a negative return, finishing…

Emergence, the major new French asset management platform, is seeding a systematic trading strategy from KeyQuant SAS with €30 million – the third hedge fund investment made by the government-backed platform, which is advised by established seeder NewAlpha Asset Management.

Alternatives may be a hot area for product development, but exchange traded fund issuers appear to be struggling to get products off the ground.

Hedge fund flows turned negative in March to the tune of $12.4bn, but flows for the quarter were still positive $7.6bn and total industry AUM reached $2.664tn. Fund of funds flows were highly negative again in Q1, continuing to draft on overall hedge fund flows, according to the latest asset flows report from eVestment.

Commodity funds took a beating in the first quarter, with the average actively managed fund in the Lipper Global Commodity sector down 1.83 percent, as market volatility provided no clear direction.

The status of commodities as a distinct asset class is under threat following another lousy start to the year for investors.

Hedge funds increased bets on gold rallying after prices plunged the most in 33 years, underscoring billionaire John Paulson’s view that bullion will rebound.

Are your mutual funds worth what you are paying to own them? Most investors answer that crucial question backwards, saying that the fund’s results either do or do not justify the money the percentage that management keeps for itself.

News came this week that IMQ had seeded Romanesco Capital Management’s Persistence Fund alongside an Australian seeding company, Scout Global Funds . Oliver Alliker, director at Scout Global, explains that the firm was founded in Sydney from a family office in 2006 with the remit of investing in global emerging systematic trading managers via managed accounts.