Hedge funds

As investors pull billions out of commodities, Yale University Professor K. Geert Rouwenhorst’s funds are still attracting new money. SummerHaven Investment Management oversaw $1.5 billion as of November, from $600 million in January, even as raw-material prices fell and its exchange-traded fund declined.

BlackRock, Macquarie Group and Millennium Capital Management former employees are planning a Hong Kong-based hedge fund which will use computer models to spot trading opportunities in 13 Asian stock markets.

This past week saw a number of new offerings in exchange traded products and funds from Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, KraneShares and FirstTrust, among others. Also, Van Eck Global closes five international-themed funds.

Janus shares surged 43% on Sept. 26, their biggest one-day gain ever, after it announced that Bill Gross would join the firm from Pimco. Hiring Gross was the boldest step yet in an almost five-year effort by Richard M. Weil to attract new money and change the public perception of Janus, a firm still known primarily for its growth-equity funds.

The industry saw Bill Gross attracting $769 million to Janus, the global ETP market breaking an asset record, a prediction on how much of 401(k) contributions that target-date funds will capture by the end of the decade and a J.P. Morgan executive joining Wilton, Conn.,-based Commonfund as CEO.

Carlson Capital, a $9 billion investment firm, plans to start three hedge funds to invest in the debt and equity of energy companies after oil prices slumped to their lowest in five years.

Money managers’ profits in North America last year surpassed pre-crisis levels, rebounding to $34 billion on asset and revenue growth, according to a study by McKinsey & Co. Profits were 18% above the pre-crisis peak in 2007 after assets reached $30 trillion. Profits at asset managers globally also moved past 2007 levels, increasing 15% to $65 billion from 2007. Assets reached a record $64 trillion last year.

John Hancock Investments president and CEO Andrew Arnott discusses the strategic decisions the firm made as it reengineered itself following its 2004 acquisition by Canadian insurer Manulife Financial, the challenges facing asset managers in answering alternative investment demand and even potential competition from non-traditional players entering the asset management space.

Stung by poor returns and large redemptions, 889 hedge funds worldwide shut in the first 11 months of the year, above the annual average of 810 in the five years since the global financial crisis of 2008, according to figures from research firm Eurekahedge. In contrast, 56 Asia-focused funds had closed by the end of November, less than half the average 135 closures in the previous five years.

With ETF assets now poised to cross the $2 trillion mark in the U.S., industry experts gathered at the annual IMN global indexing and ETF conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., marveled at the rapid growth, innovation and market acceptance of exchange traded products in the last decade.

The industry saw ETF inflows break a record, Russell Indexes liquidating a fund and mergers between asset manager service providers.

Concerns about an over-proliferation of ETFs, curiosity regarding how market demand will shape product innovation and questions about the direction of regulation are expected to punctuate discussions among those attending the 19th annual IMN global Indexing and ETF Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., that begins on Dec. 7.

Man Group, the largest publicly traded hedge fund manager in the world, will buy fund-of-hedge funds assets from Merrill Lynch Alternative Investments to expand in the U.S. The London-based firm will acquire the contracts to manage Merrill’s $1.2 billion multi-strategy investments, and will pay Merrill Lynch $2.9 million when the deal closes and 35% of the management fees generated annually for five years, not to exceed $30 million.

Hedge funds are betting that the oil- price crash is close to ending. Speculators boosted their net-long position in West Texas Intermediate crude by 14% in the week ended Dec. 2, the most in 20 months, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Short bets contracted by 15% as long wagers expanded 4%.

Bill Gross’s exit unleashed a crisis that Pimco is still trying to contain. His departure was followed by record withdrawals from the mutual fund he once ran, and which he built into the world’s biggest.

The SEC's changes in July to Rule 2a-7 governing money market funds may be simple in concept - but they will require significant changes in fund operations. Fund transfer agents and other service providers must significantly reengineer their processes to comply with the new rules between now and 2016, when the most significant changes take effect.

Corporate bond sales worldwide are poised to set an annual record as soon as this week as companies lock in borrowing costs that forecasters say are bound to rise. Amazon.com., Volkswagen and Alibaba have propelled offerings to $3.96 trillion this year, about $7 billion short of the peak of $3.97 trillion in 2012.

The largest U.S. ETF that tracks mainland Chinese stocks has jumped to a record premium to its underlying assets as unprecedented demand forces fund manager Deutsche Bank AG to all but stop taking in new money.

The end of the year is the perfect time to think about what you accomplished and what you want to accomplish in the next twelve months. This checklist will help ensure you've thought through the major considerations to plan your distribution strategy for 2015.

Steven A. Cohen’s new firm will stop collecting employees’ best trading ideas for a central investment pool and rewarding them with a special bonus, a practice that the U.S. government said created wrong incentives at his former hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP.