Pfister said Altegris, which currently manages some $4.5 billion in assets across its products, raised about $2 billion last year, with 70% of that going into mutual funds. He also said the firm experienced typical industry redemptions rates of 25% to 30%.
In general, asset managers are looking towards 2013 to mitigate their sub-par performance in 2012. Robert Worthington, president of Hatteras Funds, said being hedged, in general, didn't work as well as people thought. "There wasn't a big selloff or correction in the market so more and more people questioned the need for hedging strategies," he said. "2012 was an okay to disappointing year for hedge funds."
Going forward, Worthington said 2013 will be a better environment for alternative fund managers. "The 30-plus years of the fixed-income bull market probably has run its course. Sometime this year there will be an increase in interest rates. We've also seen the beginnings of revenue growth in US companies' fundamentals,'' he said.
Hatteras, which runs some $2 billion in assets as of October 2012, took in $400 million last year, according to Worthington. He did not have the firm's outflow data readily available.
Cole Wilcox, chief executive officer of Longboard Asset Management, which launched itsManaged Futures Strategy Fund in June 2012 but didn't start actively trading it until November 2012, said the big trend last year was...the lack of trends.
"What we saw was the single greatest drought of trends in global markets in the last 40 years," he said. "Going forward in 2013 and beyond, the statistical anomaly of directionless volatility will disappear."
Wilcox is so bullish on the managed futures space, in fact, that he is forecasting a push up in assets to $300 million by the end of the year for his fledgling fund from its current $25 million. "I have a very high confidence in single-manager funds raising assets. Currently, there's us andAQR Capital Management and no other authentic talented managed futures people in the space and that is the preferred access point for advisors. I'm confident we're going to hit our target for the year," he said.
