German fund manager to launch Big Data hedge fund

Holger Knauer A Frankfurt-based manager is to launch a fund that invests exclusively on independent trading signals generated from Big Data analysis, combined with artificial intelligence algorithms. There aren't many asset management firms around doing this, but as many are already tinkering with Big Data, or using self-learning technology, this strategy is very much part of the technological experiment that is taking place in the financial markets

"Big Data ... refers to collections of data sets that are very large and complex, and as such resist attempts to process or manage using traditional methods," said BNY Mellon in a report on Big Data. "More recently, the term has also come to encompass the use of specialised analytical techniques and computing tools to analyse these large and complex data sets. Today's computing tools can quickly interrogate these huge data sets, revealing hitherto untapped trends, patterns and correlations, from which new insights and predictions around current and future purchasing, or in this case investor needs, can be extrapolated.

"Supermarkets have developed sophisticated data-driven profiling tools," ... And "the investment management industry already possesses similar transactional or investment data."

Big Data AIF

Catana Capital will launch the Catana Big Data fund in mid-2016; it will be an onshore AIFMD-regulated Alternative Investment Fund.

"We decided to go for a public AIF setup, which means it's publicly distributable with daily liquidity like a normal UCITS fund, but it has wider rules with respect to position limits or the amount of cash we can h......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.