Accessing non-correlated strategies has emerged as the top institutional aim in hedge fund investing, according to a survey by SEI Knowledge Partnership and Greenwich Associates, reflecting a shift in objectives since the 2009 survey, when institutions reported diversification and absolute return as priorities. (more…)

Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) have a relatively unique profile within fixed income portfolios, which has important implications for investors’ setting of objectives and portfolio construction. This Towers Watson article explores the different motivations for using TIPS and other inflation hedges. (more…)

This article by Momtchil Pojarliev and Richard Levich proposes a methodology to measure crowded trades and applies it to currency managers. According to the authors, this methodology offers useful insights regarding the popularity of certain trades among hedge funds and provides regulators with another tool for monitoring markets. (more…)

While active management has been the biggest contributor to the outperformance of the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board in the past year, the fund has a firm focus on the value of asset allocation. With this in mind it recently changed its long-term policy allocation, dramatically increasing the allocation to credit opportunities from 5 per cent to 20 per cent. (more…)

As institutions take over from high-net-worth individuals and family offices as the main investors in hedge funds around the world, those hedge fund managers, too, are becoming institutionalised. This is not always a good thing for investors. (more…)

Fee comparison between hedge funds and private equity is riddled with complexity, but a research paper by specialist alternative consulting firm, Cliffwater – that weighs outcomes by their likelihood of occurrence – finds a fee cost for the typical hedge fund equals 32 per cent of gross profits, while for private equity it is 25 per cent of expected gross profits. (more…)