Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
from Global Investing:
Equities — an ‘even years’ curse?
Are global equity markets under an 'Even Years Curse' that sees them underperform bonds in even-numbered years but beat fixed-income returns in odd-numbered ones? After some number-crunching, Fidelity International's' director of asset allocation Trevor Greetham suspects so.
"It's not just hocus-pocus but to do with global inventory levels," he explained at a forum organised by the London-based investment house.
The inventory cycle typically lasts about two years. 'Up' years are good for company profits and equity prices with the inverse true when inventory levels are being drawn down. And over the last decade, Greetham notes, the 'stocking up' years have been odd-numbered calendar years while inventory draw-down years have been even-numbered ones.
Looking at the MSCI All World Equity Index, Greetham found equities generating a 69-percent return over the 12-year period starting from 1998. Breaking this down into odd and even years, equities went down by 30 percent in even years, and up by 143 percent in odd years.
from Global Investing:
What fund managers think
Bank of America-Merrill Lynch's monthly poll of around 200 fund managers had a few nuggets in the June version, aside from the usual mood-taking.
Gold is too expensive. A net 27 percent of respondent thought it overvalued, up from 13 percent in May. Then again, the respondents to this poll have reckoned gold is too pricey since September 2009.
from Global Investing:
Too much correlation
Globalisation is evident in this graphic put together by James Bristow, a global equities portfolio manager at BlackRock. It shows the correlation between the U.S. S&P stock index and counterparts in Europe, Australasia and the Far East.
Basically, what happens these days on Wall Street is matched everywhere else, or vice versa.
Tutting investors force F&C to ditch deal
UK fund firm F&C has received a slap on the wrist from its largest shareholders over plans to acquire an Austrian fund manager.
Investors want F&C to cement its recent turnaround in investment performance which resulted in net inflows at the start of 2010, rather than have the distraction of an acquisition. The company today said it was ditching plans to acquire Vienna-based quant specialist C-Quadrat just three days after submitting offer documents.
from Global Investing:
Time up for emerging markets?
Well, not in the long-run, no. You would be hard pressed to find an economist, investor or even politician who does not reckon the global shift in growth to Asia and Latin America is going to be the story of the coming decade, century etc.
But in the shorter term, strange things are happening. MSCI's benchmark emerging market stock index is barely in the black for the year. Even more surprising is that it is underperforming its developed market counterpart.
Morning Line-up
Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:
Hedge funds face investor war on fees – Reuters
Och-Ziff third quarter income falls – Reuters
Mark Kary to resign from Polar Capital - FT Adviser
Hedge fund adviser to lead SEC policing body – WSJ
Asian hedge fund asset on the rise – Bloomberg
from Summit Notebook:
Tax evaders on the run
By Neil Chatterjee
The U.S. has promised it will hunt down tax evaders.
And it seems tax evaders are on the run.
DBS bank, based in the growing offshore financial centre of
Singapore, told Reuters it had been approached by U.S. citizens
asking for its private banking services. But when told they would
have to sign U.S. tax declaration forms, the potential clients
disappeared.
Swiss banks also approached DBS on the hope they could
offload troublesome U.S. clients to a location that so far has
not been reached by the strong arms of Washington or Brussels.
DBS said no thanks. In fact many private banks and boutique
advisors now seem to be avoiding U.S. clients.
Will this spread to other nationalities, as governments
invest in tax spies and tax havens invest in white paint?
Is this the end of offshore private private banking?
from Commentaries:
Moulton’s parting shot at Alchemy
Real Business is running a copy of what it says is Jon Moulton's resignation letter from Alchemy.
It is full of wonderful nuggets about the private equity boutique he set up in 1997 and gives insight into a wider malaise in financial services. Moulton is not saying if the letter -- which is addressed to investors -- is authentic.
The letter's parting words capture the tone: "I would do it again - but better".
Morning line-up
Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:
Hedge fund bets millions that gas price will triple – FT
Hedge funds ratchet up their focus on China – WSJ
Bear Stearns hedge fund mgr ignored conflict warnings: gvt – Reuters
Investors are getting back into hedge funds – Morningstar
Investcorp posts H2 loss, sees improvement in hedge fund business – Reuters
Western investors fear Dubai’s Wild East reputation
By Jason Benham
Glitzy Dubai’s property market is in trouble, there’s no doubt about that. Just take a look at the hundreds of motionless cranes, unfinished projects and the expats who are leaving in droves as they lose their jobs.
And prices and rents which soared during a six-year boom have crashed since late last year. According to one resident who recently moved in the City, it now costs 150,000 dirhams to rent a three-bedroom flat on the Palm, a man-made island off the coast of the emirate, around the same it would have cost to rent a one-bedroom appartment there a year ago.
