{"id":27193,"date":"2013-02-11T23:59:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T22:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/news\/alternatives-already-add-alpha-in-2013\/"},"modified":"2013-02-11T23:59:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T22:59:27","slug":"alternatives-already-add-alpha-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/news\/alternatives-already-add-alpha-in-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternatives already add alpha in 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hedge funds have started 2013 on a high note, supported
\nby the rally in risky assets, amid improving economic data,
\nreflation plans in Japan and the absence of disappointing news
\non the political front.<\/strong> Most of the best January performers of the
\nLyxor platform are to be found in the L\/S Equity space. Long
\nbiased managers maintained net exposures levels at about
\n60% on average while variable bias funds\u2019 managers kept
\nincreasing gross and net exposures to the highest levels seen
\nover the last five years. Moreover, funds reinforced the beta
\ntrade by concentrating their sector bets on financials and
\nindustrials. Obviously, equity long and variable strategies
\nbenefited from this bullish positioning and the L\/S Equity Long
\nand Variable Bias indices returned 3.7% and 2.5% respectively.<\/p>\n

More importantly, the start of the quarterly earnings season
\noffered additional opportunities for alpha generators.<\/strong> Market
\nneutral strategies managed to capture those opportunities.
\nCross sectional dispersion recovered somewhat and volatility
\ncontinued to ease. Both trends compounded and the ratio
\ndispersion to volatility, the main performance driver of the
\nsegment, moved up.<\/p>\n

As a whole, market neutral funds stand out as the best
\nperforming strategy in January<\/strong> within the Lyxor universe with the
\nLyxor L\/S Equity Market Neutral index staging an eye-catching
\n5.1% gain. Market neutral systematic strategies benefited as
\nwell from the improving trading environment but to a lesser
\nextent and the Lyxor L\/S Equity Statistical Arbitrage index
\nadvanced 1.9%.<\/p>\n

Event Driven hedge funds posted mixed performances.<\/strong> Merger
\nArbitrage strategies lagged their Special Situations and Distressed peers as a major deal broke mid-January: European
\nregulators moved to block a transatlantic deal in the packagedelivery
\nsector. Merger Arbitrage players as a whole recouped
\ntheir losses and the Lyxor Merger Arbitrage index ended the
\nmonth up 0.2%. Positions in consumer cyclical, financial and
\ncommunication sectors allowed Distressed strategies to gain
\n1.3% in January. Special Situations managers returns were led
\nby both favorable market directionality and idiosyncratic
\ninvestments. The Lyxor Special Situations index sported a 2.6%
\nadvance year-to-date.<\/p>\n

Managers in the fixed-income space were confronted to a
\nmore challenging environment where high grade sovereign
\nbonds, so called safe havens, suffered from investors\u2019
\ndisinterest.<\/quote>
\n Arbitrageurs disappointed and the Lyxor Fixed
\nIncome Arbitrage index declined 0.6%. Credit related strategies
\nwere better off, buoyed by the compression in credit spreads
\nand the Lyxor L\/S Credit Arbitrage index added 1.4% in
\nJanuary. The very low volatility backdrop remained detrimental
\nto Convertible strategies but the rally in equities and a revival in
\nissuance drove performance. The Lyxor Convertible Bonds
\nArbitrage Index yielded 1.2% over the month.<\/p>\n

Global Macro strategies recorded gains on both their net long
\nequity exposures and their overall net short exposures to bonds
\nbut positions in foreign exchange and precious metals
\ndetracted from performance.<\/quote>
\n The Lyxor Global Macro Index
\nappreciated 1.2% year-to-date. Long term CTAs, broadly long
\nequities and long interest rates nicely caught the onset of the
\n\u201cGreat Rotation\u201d out of bonds and into equities. The Lyxor CTA
\nLong Term index advanced 1.4% in January. By contrast, high
\nfrequency funds stalled as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe normalizing trading environment has been particularly
\nbeneficiary to market neutral managers recently. Alpha
\ngeneration has been significant in January \u201d<\/em> says Stefan Keller,
\nHead of Managed Account Platform Research & External
\nRelations at Lyxor AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hedge funds have started 2013 on a high note; the Lyxor
\nHedge Fund Index was up +1.6% in January. Twelve Lyxor
\nStrategy Indices out of 14 ended the month in positive territory,
\nled by the Lyxor L\/S Equity Market Neutral Index (+5.1%), the
\nLyxor L\/S Equity Long Bias Index (+3.7%) and the Lyxor Special
\nSituations Index (+2.6%)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":27191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1470],"tags":[1687,1743,1655,1658,1723,1690,1651,1662,2243,1672],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27193"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}