Liquid Alternatives
Liquid Alternative investments have emerged over the past decade as one of the fastest-growing areas within asset management. As pensions, endowments, foundations and other institutional investors have long benefited from Alternative Investments within their portfolios, Liquid Alternatives enable investors to have access to alternative investment strategies in fund structures that provide daily liquidity, full transparency, low investment minimums and other key attributes for investors. DailyAlts is your source for the most up-to-the-minute news, commentary and analysis on the global market for Liquid Alternatives.
Top Story
Spawned after the 2008 financial crisis, liquid alternatives have disappointed investors. During the 2010s, these instruments averaged an annualized gain of 1.66%. Writing in Morningstar, columnist John Rekenthaler makes a telling comment in his article Liquid Alternatives Funds: Is There Any Hope?: “The concern lies when the hedged investment trails high-quality bonds, as has been the case with liquid alternatives funds. In that case, why bother with trickery? You could just hold Treasuries instead.”
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More Stories on Liquid Alternatives
Liquid Alternatives: Prime Capital Launches Liquid Alts Credit Fund
Prime Capital’s Liquid Alternative Credit Fund, a new fund of funds, will invest in 15 to 20 underlying funds which are diversified globally and invest in alternative credit strategies such as trade finance and real estate bridge financing. Prime Capital AG manages €17.2bn of assets in various funds.
Private Equity: Healthcare Firm Edifecs Lands PE Deal
Private equity firms TA Associates and Francsico Partners announced that they will complete a deal with healthcare software company Edifecs. CEO of Edifecs Sunny Singh intends to lead the company through a transformation. The healthcare industry is quickly changing with the help of the technology sector. According to Singh, “Today’s healthcare industry is in a…
Real Assets Investing Through REITs
“We desperately need income, but we are in a yieldless world,” writes analyst Jussi Askola in “The New Gold Rush.” Zero or negative interest rates are going to push investors into real assets.
Liquid Alternatives Rocket Higher as Australia Takes Off
Liquid Alts Show Strength Amid Global Pandemic. Liquid Alternative investments are rapidly growing in the United States and around the world. In one of the latest signs of global espousement of Liquid Alts, ARP Investments secured a partnership with Axius Partners, a Sydney based company, for broad-based distribution. Liquid alternative strategies are in high demand…
Liquid Alternatives: Picton Mahoney Launches New Long Short Alternative Fund
Canadian asset manager Picton Mahoney Asset Management has launched a new alternative investment fund that protects investors from the risks to the downside from equities. The fund is available in the versions of mutual fund and ETF. The Picton Mahoney Fortified Long Short Alternative Fund will use short positions to achieve risk mitigation.
Liquid Alternatives Showing Their Strength Amid 2020’s Volatility
Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index Up in June. The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index was up nearly 1% in June, continuing to show strength in navigating this year’s wild market ride. The Index is a benchmark for the performance of Liquid Alternative Funds. Longtime Wilshire Associates veteran, Jason Schwarz, said that “Markets rallied in the second quarter…
Liquid Alternatives: “The Most Hated Stock Rally in History” Proves Pundits Wrong…Again
Salvatore J. Bruno, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director, IndexIQ, makes the interesting point that it is hard to predict how markets will behave around a significant inflection point. Writing in ETF Trends he observes that, as usual, markets were ahead of the curve and discounting an economic recovery that was invisible to economists and analysts.
Private Equity: Global Alternertives Giant Apollo Moves Deeper Into Direct Lending
Apollo Global Management is planning a $12 billion direct lending and alternative credit fund. The firm will utilize these funds to provide $1 billion in loans to various companies. Abu Dhabi fund Mubadala backs this Investment along with other investors involved in the project. Direct lending will allow investors to invest in high-quality businesses and…
Liquid Alternatives: Waratah Launches Liquid Alternative Mutual Fund With ESG
Waratah Capital Advisors Ltd, a Canadian alternative investment manager, announced Monday its launch of the Waratah Alternative ESG Fund. The mutual fund is Waratah’s second liquid alternative offering, and is powered by the firm’s alternative ESG strategy.
Private Equity: PE Giants Genstar and TA Behind Orion-Brinker Merger
Private equity player Genstar Capital played a catalytic role in bringing about a merger of platform provider Orion Advisor Solutions with investment manager Brinker Capital to form an entity with an estimated $40 billion in managed assets.
Liquid Alternatives: Rhode Island Pension Gains from Liquid Alts; Adds Wilshire Veteran Andrew Junkin
The Rhode Island pension system beat the median U.S. public pension plan by 4.2% during the first quarter of 2020, according to data from Investment Metrics. That ranked the fund 28th among the 546 public pension funds across the country. Even during the coronavirus mayhem in the markets, the Rhode Island pension fell 9.6% compared to the decline of 13.8% of the median pension plan.
Liquid Alternatives: IG Launches Four New iProfile Portfolios
Canadian fund manager IG Wealth Management has launched four new managed funds that were available for purchase effective June 22. The funds, dubbed iProfile Portfolios, will suit a wide variety of investor profiles and preferences, enhance their financial confidence, and help them achieve long-term investment goals. The iProfile Portfolios include various investment options such as active allocation, passive ETFs, liquid alternatives and unique private assets.
Liquid Alternatives: Mackenzie’s Alternative Enhanced Yield Fund is its Fifth Liquid Alt Offering
Mackenzie Investments launched today the Mackenzie Alternative Enhanced Yield Fund which generates returns using alternative strategies to build a diversified portfolio.
Liquid Alternatives: AQR Launches A Diversifying Strategies Mutual Fund That Will Invest in Six Alt Funds
AQR Capital Management, LLC announced Monday the launch of its AQR Diversifying Strategies Fund. This mutual fund invests in a portfolio of AQR’s six alternative mutual funds. Intended as a supplement to an investor’s traditional stock and bond portfolio, the Fund provides exposure to liquid alternatives with attractive long-term risk-adjusted returns.
Liquid Alternatives: Wilshire Liquid Index Returns 1.54% in May
This figure surpassed the 1.44% return from the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index in May. According to HedgeWeek, the index aims “to deliver precise market measures for the performance of diversified liquid alternative investment strategies implemented through mutual fund structures, backed by a proprietary classification methodology.”
Liquid Alternatives: AuM of Actively Managed ETFs Shows 36% Add Y-on-Y
Investors are increasingly interested in targeted strategies inside an ETF product. More than half of ETF launches thus far in 2020 have been actively managed ETFs, observed Yones on CNBC’s ETF Edge. This year, therefore, might well turn out to be a breakout year for actively managed funds, according to Yones.
Liquid Alternatives: Blackstone Liquid Alternative Fund Drops H2O As Sub-Adviser
Blackstone Liquid Alternative Fund Drops H2O As Sub-Adviser. The $6.1 billion Blackstone Alternative Multi-Strategy Fund had not allocated any funds to H2O over the past two years.
According to a Bloomberg report, which quoted a person familiar with the situation, the decision to dump H2O was not related to performance. H2O is a majority-owned unit of French company Natixis SA and is run by Bruno Crastes and Vincent Chailley.
Liquid Alternatives: CI Investments Launches Income-Oriented Liquid Alt
CI Investments has launched the CI Marret Alternative Enhanced Yield Fund, available both as a mutual fund and as an ETF. The funds intend to generate an attractive yield while protecting the principal.
Liquid Alternatives: How Investors Should Handle Complex Liquid Alt ETFs
Here are the key takeaways from etf.com’s interview with Sal Bruno, chief investment officer of IndexIQ.
Liquid Alternatives: RIP 60:40. Liquid Alts Solve the New Equation
Volatile equity markets and declining fixed income yields have turned the traditional 60:40 portfolio allocation between stocks and bonds on its head. According to one study, an investor would today need to allocate 83% to equity, 15% to real estate, and only 2% to bonds to earn a similar rate of return as a couple of decades ago. Unfortunately, such a high component of equity would push up the portfolio’s volatility and risk to unacceptable levels. Liquid alts can be the solution to this dilemma.
Liquid Alternatives: Insurance-Linked Securities Attractive Amid Covid-19 Economy
S&P Global Ratings said in a recent report that the COVID-19 pandemic had “showcased” the value of publicly traded catastrophe bonds (cat bonds) to investors. The bonds formed a liquid asset class that was not correlated with the current volatile financial markets.
Liquid Alternatives: Picking eCommerce ETFs Amidst the Retail Apocalypse
American retail sales plunged to a record low in April. It is a reflection of the dire straits that the retail industry is in due to the coronavirus pandemic. US retail sales fell by 16.4% in April, following up on an 8.3% decline in March. This is the largest two-month plunge on record. The virus scare may be the last straw on the camel’s back, as far as America’s already struggling retail industry is concerned. To put salt to injury, online sales grew 8.4% in April.
Liquid Alternatives: New, ‘Megatrend’ ETFs from Lyxor
Lyxor International Asset Management has launched a clutch of five thematic ETFs that seek to capture megatrends unfolding globally, particularly after the COVID-19 crisis. Investors looking for gains beyond the pale of the conventional sector and market-cap-weighted funds could consider investing in these funds. These megatrend ETFs span themes such as the growth of the digital economy and disruptive technology, urban change with future mobility and smart cities, and the consumption habits of millennials.
Liquid Alternatives: The Uber Vs. Grubhub Food Delivery War – ETFs to Profit
The Wall Street Journal revealed Tuesday that Uber (NYSE: UBER) is pursuing a takeover of food delivery service Grubhub (NYSE: GRUB) in an all-stock deal. In fact, talks started earlier this year, and according to Bloomberg, the deal could be consummated as early as this month. If successful, Uber’s play for Grubhub would be a gamechanger for the food delivery sector.