Thinking about UCITS from the investment manager’s perspective:
 
Those of us faced with the reality of European hedge fund regulation will be familiar with UCITS III. You get points for knowing what UCITS actually means: Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities, quite meaningless and proof positive of its European provenance.
 
In 2008, hedge funds lost money, [...]

Hedge Fund Leverage. Too much or too little?
 
Every time there is a hedge fund crisis the subject of leverage comes up. But how does one define leverage in a hedge fund? Is it the same definition you would use for a proprietary trading desk being allocated risk?
 
Let’s deal with fixed income and credit strategies separately [...]

It is time for central banks to back away. Not from raising or cutting rates. It is time for them to extricate themselves from any activities that might distort market prices.
It is time for governments to back away. The economic purpose of government should be to provide frameworks and systemic infrastructure, and to only provide [...]

In my earlier post of 8 October, I argued that if one had no memory and only asset allocated based on prevailing pricing, equities did not appear overvalued. I ignored assumptions of default risk in the bonds as well as recovery assumptions which may have tipped the scales in favour of credit over equities at [...]

Its the beginning of the 4th quarter and the 3rd quarter performance results and commentaries from the hedge fund managers are coming in thick and fast. A common thread runs through most of them. Risky assets are over-valued. Some say equities are overvalued, some say corporate bonds are overvalued. Who can tell? I decided to look at [...]