Funds Management

AQR co-founder and CIO Cliff Asness talks to ISN about how social media might be making markets less efficient, the cloak and dagger world of alternative data, and why using machine learning means having to “let go of some things you cherish”.

Even established asset managers are under threat from the violent shift towards low-cost investment vehicles, while allocator preference for platform businesses means they must also bulk up in the private markets.

True diversification means owning assets that are truly uncorrelated. But that fact hasn’t stopped big investors from piling into the private markets while pretending that the Fed Put can protect their public portfolios.

Perpetual, Victor Smorgon Partners and Rixon Capital took out some of the top gongs at the Australian Alternative Investment Awards, but the big win was for those who have worked tirelessly to professionalise Australia’s hedge funds landscape.

Client alignment, investor psychology and clashing fee streams are top concerns for Leda Braga, CEO of Systematica Investments, who says that poor decision making around drawdowns is still rife in the market,

The $15 billion value house Ariel Investments sees diversity as a competitive advantage at a time when “the whole conversation is being turned on its head” and active managers are under pressure to perform.

The sharp fall in markets in August was a sign of things to come, according to Ruffer, but one that investors haven’t heeded, with positioning and sentiment becoming even more extreme.

There’s a massive global shortfall in capital to finance the energy transition, and a significant chunk is still being spent in the developed world. But the battle for net zero will be “won or lost” in the emerging market corporate sector.

There’s a lot of uncertainty out there in the market, but fear of missing out means investors are turning a blind eye to it. August’s ‘volmageddon’ could be a sign of things to come.

Perpetual has turned to the “experienced business builder” and former CEO of the circa $300 billion Australian Retirement Trust to set it on a new course as it lops off business units and doubles down on asset management.

Valuations are so high in India that people need to have “completely given up hope” before Pzena wades in and makes an investment. It’s shopping in China while it waits.

How do investors stay on top of diversification and maintain adequate levels of non-correlation when markets oscillate with every breath and asset relationships are as fickle as they are malleable?