Roberto Obregon, of the Meketa Investment Group, has written a paper (available at SSRN) on the use of options-based equity strategies. Obregon is the author of a number of scholarly papers on alternative strategies, including one last fall on global macro, which he co-authored with Willam Dana. In his optionsRead More
Options-based Strategies and their Pay-offs
↧
↧
Funds Use Public Info to Complement Private Signals
Alan D. Crane and two colleagues have written a paper on whether and how hedge funds profit from publicly available information, in particular from SEC filings. Crane is an assistant professor at Houstonâs Rice University, Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. He and two Rice students, Kevin Crotty andRead More
↧
âYou Kick Itâ and the Alternative Investment Industry
The Alternative Investment Management Association, the London-based organization representing the interests of the worldâs alternative investment industry, has issued a new whitepaper about the impact of the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union. This ongoing event, known popularly as Brexit, has occupied armies of reporters, planners, andRead More
↧
in-i-fish-uh nt (adj.)Â
By Bill Kelly, CAIA CEO In the good old days of bound books, a dictionary and thesaurus were de rigueur desktop accessories, no matter your stock-in-trade. It is hard to argue with the modern-day convenience of a Siri or Alexa who can define that certain word, or produce the ideal synonym, on-demand. The over-50 crowd, however, might remember and even lament the lost art of searching for the meaning of a word; when found, it was often accompanied by a descriptive picture that rendered the defining words to follow almost superfluous. IfRead More
↧
Understanding the Surge in Appraisal Remedies
A new paper by Alexandros L. Seretakis takes a comparative look at appraisal rights in the United States and the European Union, noting along the way that this familiar legal protection mechanism for minority shareholders has become quite high-profile in recent years. Appraisal rights have given rise to âa newRead More
↧
↧
Oil Price Shocks and Economic Growth
The U.S. is withdrawing from a multilateral agreement with Iran that was aimed at dissuading the Iranian regime from further progress toward nuclearization. In the meantime, the U.S. and its allies have bombed Syria in retaliation for that countryâs chemical attacks on its people, and a shake-up in the topRead More
↧
DONâT FEAR THE ROBO!
By Diane Harrison Technology advances have infiltrated every corner of finance, including the world of wealth management. While few can argue with the positives of automated, algorithm-based portfolio management platforms, the advent of the cost-efficient, dispassionate robo-advisor has struck fear into the heart of many a financial advisor and fundRead More
↧
AIMAâs Vision Statement from Hedge Fund Industry Leaders
Some of the leading figures in the alt investment industry have put their dignified heads together and created a vision statement, called âPerspectives: Industry Leaders on the Future of the Hedge Fund Industry.â The gist of the paper is that firms in the industry are quickly adapting to contemporary conditionsRead More
↧
Too Big Too FrailÂ
By Bill Kelly, CAIA CEO The most intractable challenges in society, and life, sometimes subsist in a state of duality. The size and scale of the downside are enormous and almost paralyzing if allowed into our daily psyche. Sometimes however, especially in life, we have finely tuned coping mechanisms that we allow in to keep these thoughts in check. This mental recalibration can be a good thing, especially when put intoRead More
↧
↧
What Constitutes Price Manipulation?
The two commissions that serve as market enforcers in the United States, the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission, agree on a lot. (As, indeed, one would hope, since their work has considerable overlap.) One of the points on which the commissions have general agreement is theRead More
↧
WisdomTree on the Success of its Rate-Hedge Agg Suite
The path to higher rates has not been a smooth one, but interest rates in the United States are now higher than they have been since the global financial crisis and they may well become higher than they are now. What should traders or investors do about this? How toRead More
↧
China-US Trade War and Other Worries
The Eurekahedge April 2018 report says that hedge funds were down in the first quarter of the year (-0.13%). This is the industryâs worst performance since Q1 2016. The steepest performance-based losses by regional mandate were those of the North American funds, they lost $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, asset inflows remainedRead More
↧
The Role Dividends Can Play in International Equity Investing
Summary Dividend yielding stocks can make a meaningful contribution to a portfolio in international markets as well as domestic. Higher returns are not always associated with higher risk. High dividend investing has been beneficial over most years and investment horizons. An emphasis on dividends appears to contribute across cycles, sectorsRead More
↧
↧
Revising the ICAPM to Reflect Effects of Style Investing
A recent paper by Michael Stutzer, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Leeds School of Business, suggests that the intertemporal version of the capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) needs some revision in light of the market dominance of style investors. A more full statement of that might be: itRead More
↧
Thoughts on the European Regulation on Short Selling
A new paper by Marco DellâErba and Giovanni Patti takes a look at a recent crisis involving the stock of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), as a way of studying the pragmatics of the European Regulation on short selling (SSR). DellâUrba is affiliated with the New York UniversityRead More
↧
The CBOE and VIX: The Appearance of Manipulation
On April 23, 2018, the chairman and the president of the Chicago Board Options Exchange issued an open letter to address concerns that the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) is subject to manipulation. There were at least two incitements behind this letter. First, its authors, Chairman Ed Tilly and President ChrisRead More
↧
Crowdfunding in the Absence of Liquidity Constraints
A forthcoming issue of the Journal of the European Economic Association will carry a study arguing that crowdfunding in the absence of liquidity constraints is a superior method of equity financing–superior to âtraditional financing forms,â that is, unless those traditional financiers are fully competitive and perfectly informed. By one estimate,Read More
↧
↧
Distressed Digital Exchanges as Buyout Targets
Tanzeel Akhtar has written a story for BraveNewCoin in which she discusses the availability of distressed digital exchanges as a means by which large companies can cheaply gain their own toeholds in the cryptocurrency world. Surely, risk arbs in the world of alternative investment will find this paper a valuableRead More
↧
A Microfinance Fund for Central Java, Indonesia
Blossom Finance, an investment consultancy that describes its business model as âcommercial financing with social benefits,â announced recently open enrollment for an Islamic microfinance fund designed to bolster micro-businesses and traditional market sellers in the province of Central Java, Indonesia. This will be a crypto-currency infused fund: participants can investRead More
↧
Operating Expenses, Strategies, and Scale
Meketa Investment Group has issued a paper on the state of hedge fund operating expenses, the point of which is to offer actual and potential fund investors and their managers alike a benchmarking tool. By definition operating costs are those costs associated with day-to-day operations and the needs of anRead More
↧
