{"id":28129,"date":"2013-04-08T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2013-04-07T22:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/news\/hedge-funds-advance-in-march-looking-beyond-europe\/"},"modified":"2013-04-08T00:01:58","modified_gmt":"2013-04-07T22:01:58","slug":"hedge-funds-advance-in-march-looking-beyond-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/news\/hedge-funds-advance-in-march-looking-beyond-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Hedge funds advance in march, looking beyond Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

March was dominated by political turmoil in Italy and the
\nspecter of a bank run in Cyprus.<\/strong> The above-mentioned events
\nare signs that the European debt crisis is far away from being
\nsolved. On the other hand, US economic momentum keeps
\nimproving and by endorsing Kuroda as the new BoJ governor,
\nmarkets expect Japan\u2019s economy to move to the tune of
\nAbenomics.<\/p>\n

Markets proved resilient, despite the Italian turmoil and
\nCyprus bailout.<\/strong> It seems that equities\u2019 attractive valuations
\noutweigh the potential risks. Since Japan joined the camp of
\naggressive monetary policymakers, investors are triggered to
\nturn towards equities. Developed markets generally
\nstrengthened, led by a growth of 4.9% in Japanese equities,
\nshrugging off concern about European developments and
\nadopting a positive stance toward supportive US data. The fear
\nof financial stress was spread to Emerging markets that lost
\nabout -2.2%. On the fixed income space, both safe-havens
\nand credit products performed. Credit spreads compressed
\nabout -32 bps for HY. The Japanese yen continues to
\ndepreciate while USD gained against EUR on the ground of
\npolitical developments. Commodities are back into the positive
\nperformance zone and volatility retraced from the previous
\nmonth\u2019s increase.<\/p>\n

Hedge funds appreciated again during March, fueled by the
\nongoing normalization of market structure and modest but
\npositive growth prospects.<\/strong> However, the Cyprus crisis weighed
\non risk appetite over the month, especially on European
\nmarkets.<\/p>\n

L\/S Equity funds still outperformed the overall space of
\nhedge funds.<\/strong> L\/S Equity Long and Variable fund managers
\nshowed optimism regarding the reward of beta. They
\nmaintained their exposure on equities on the back of supportive
\nvaluations, decent economic growth, and still deployed excess
\nliquidity. In that environment, the upward trend in risky assets on
\na global level was not expected to end soon. The L\/S Equity
\nLong and Variable Bias indices returned 1.41% and 0.40%
\nrespectively. On the other hand, L\/S Equity Market Neutral and
\nStatistical Arbitrage fund managers still enjoyed a trading
\nenvironment where correlations have come down, stock
\ndispersion is picking up and volatility remains at manageable levels. L\/S Equity Market Neutral and Statistical Arbitrage funds
\ngained respectively 0.36% and 0.82%.<\/p>\n

Event Driven hedge funds slightly appreciated over the
\nmonth.<\/strong> Distressed securities funds performed through credit
\ninvestments in financial and energy names. The Lyxor
\nDistressed Index registered a 0.99% gain this month. Special
\nSituations managers suffered mainly from positions in the basic
\nmaterials and government sectors. However, the Lyxor Special
\nSituations Index registered a 2.09% gain over the month.
\nEvents on M&A deals were muted and merger arbitrage
\nmanagers mainly gained on the spread fluctuations. The Lyxor
\nMerger Arbitrage Index registered a 1.14% advance in March.<\/p>\n

In the fixed income space, Credit related strategies were the
\nmost affected by negative developments in the Cyprus bailout
\ncase, bringing some volatility on European and, more broadly,
\nglobal markets.<\/quote>
\n Emerging credit managers were the main losers
\ndue to their high beta exposures. Finally, spreads on European
\ncredit default swaps slightly improved on peripheral countries
\nduring the last week. Specifically, Greek bonds improved, while
\nemerging sovereign bonds posted mixed performances. The
\nLyxor L\/S Credit Arbitrage Index lost -0.51% in March.<\/p>\n

The L\/S Convertible thematic benefited from the continuous
\nupward trend experienced in the equity space and from the
\ndecent performance of credit markets.<\/quote>
\n On the other hand, volatility declined on both U.S. and European equities, and the primary market was very active. The Lyxor Convertible Bonds Arbitrage Index yielded 0.99% over the month.<\/p>\n

Global Macro strategies recorded mixed performances, with
\na negative contribution of their commodity exposures which
\noffset the positive exposures to FX and bonds.<\/quote>
\n Additional
\nlosses came from the funds\u2019 largely shared long positions in
\nWestern Europe equity indices, as a result of the situation in
\nCyprus. The Lyxor Global Macro Index lost -0.14% over the
\nmonth. Long term CTAs ended the month in positive territory
\nthanks to their equity exposures. Long Term CTAs\u2019 managers
\nhave increased their equity exposures over bonds in risk
\nallocation terms since the beginning of the year. The Lyxor CTA
\nLong Term Index advanced 1.02% in March. By contrast, high
\nfrequency funds still posted mixed performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the European political and economic turbulences
\nin March, hedge fund managers continue to focus on the
\nencouraging macro news flow generated in the US and the
\nupward trend in risky assets is not expected to end soon \u201d<\/em> says
\nStefan Keller, Head of Managed Account Platform Research &
\nExternal Relations at Lyxor AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index was up +0.62% in March,
\nbringing year-to-date performance to +2.36%. 10 Lyxor
\nStrategy Indices out of 14 ended the month in positive territory,
\nled by the Lyxor Special Situations Index (+2.09%), the Lyxor
\nL\/S Equity Long Bias (+1.41%) and the Lyxor Merger Arbitrage
\nIndex (+1.14%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":28127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1470],"tags":[1687,1655,1723,1690,1651,1437,1662,2243,1672],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28129"}],"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=28129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beta.next-finance.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}