Category: Volatility

Alternative Markets Update - Macro And Political Outlook June 2019

13/6/2019

Alternative Markets Update June 2019

June started in a more dynamic fashion for hedges funds are already recouped May’s losses. The anticipation of an interest rate cut this year as a result of Fed’s announcements resulted to a strong bounce back for equity markets. Equity hedge strategies profited the most during the first weeks of June, a month that so far is characterised by the trade war discussions and further tariff plans from US. Macro and CTA strategies had their bets right so far this month and they are waiting to capitalise on future volatility events. Bitcoin’s momentum slowed down in June and its price has receded from $8,740 to $7,900, reaching a market cap of $140bn. Ethereum had also a

slightly negative month so far and is keep following the same pattern as bitcoin.

Macro and Political Outlook June 2019 MacroEagle

Source: MacroEagle

Alternatives Market Review 2018 and Outlook 2019

30/1/2019

Alternative Markets Review 2018

2018 started as strongly as it finished in 2017, but spikes in volatility caught hedge funds unprepared and highlighted the weaknesses of the industry. The rest of the year continued in the same pattern with major political risks adding to the problem such as Brexit outcome, European elections, end of quantitative easing and trade war. The fourth quarter and equities sell-off since October ruined hedge funds hopes to rebound and sank them deeper into their losses. Event-driven and equity hedge strategies were the worst performers among hedge funds, followed by systematic CTA and macro strategies. For our in-house strategies, the scenery was slightly altered as the worst performing asset class was tactical trading. Underperformance of cryptocurrency and CTAs are the main drivers of the underperformance compared to other indices, despite the strong performance of our global macro and market neutral strategies. Equities globally suffered severe losses, similar to the majority of our in-house strategies. Our niche equity strategies focusing on disruptive techno-

logies and directors' dealing though posted strong returns and constitute our best two performing strategies for 2018, consequently leading to a relative outperformance of peer indices. Direct lending and structured credit enjoyed a good year assisting in our credit index's outperformance. Only two out of eight strategies posted losses for a year, when equity and credit largely disappointed their investors. Overall, our cross-asset and single manager index posted losses for the year due to our tactical trading underperformance, but still performed better than the majority of the individual indices.

Alternatives Market Outlook H2 2018

16/8/2018

STONE MOUNTAIN CAPITAL RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE VOL.88

Figure 1. Stone Mountain Capital In-House Indices vs. Major Benchmark Indices Hedge Funds and Long Only in H1 2018, Stone Mountain Capital Research SMC strategy indices are not investable products but are used as indication of our managers’ performance and are calculated with the equally-weighted method.

H1 2018 was rather disappointing for hedge funds, seeing outflows by end of the second quarter. According to data from Hedge Fund Research, investors invested more capital in equity hedge strategies, while they redeemed from event-driven, macro and relative value strategies. The shift in strategies was driven by the rising concerns over potential trade war, monetary policies from central banks, including interest rate decisions, and political uncertainty in major European countries. Performance was strong for strategies focusing on tech, and our equity long short manager sits on the top of our top-performing table. The divergence in central bank policies has favoured macro strategies focusing on traditional relative value bets and event-driven strategies that have catalyst elements. Our top performing strategies table consists of discretionary macro focusing on relative value trading and equity strategies that are engaged in activism and have a niche in US equities markets.

Our in-house strategies in credit, equity and fund of funds, as measured by our indices, have performed better in the first half of the year than their traditional and alternative peers. Tactical trading is still lagging due to the struggling performance of the actively managed altcoin strategy this year mainly driven by falling bitcoin prices. Equities are the top performing and the bucket that has the most representatives in the top-5 performing table, followed by credit/fixed income strategies.

Alternatives Market Review 2017

1/2/2018

Oliver Fochler
Managing Partner, CEO
Tel.: +44 7922 436360

Alexandros Kyparissis
Analyst Hedge Funds
Tel.: +44 7843 144007

Hedge Funds
Hedge funds started 2017 under pressure and the overall industry’s model was in question. Performance and fees were the main topic of debate among investors at the beginning of the year, but hedge funds managed to pull a strong year with no down month. Despite losses from some large managers, the industry overall generated strong returns according to HFR data attracting more capital. Per HFR, total hedge fund industry AuM increased by $59bn to $3.21tr, the sixth consecutive quarterly record for total industry AuM. The inflows suggest a sign of regained optimism, but the industry will need to sustain its performance long-term in order to regain its calibre. The oxymoron of the industry is the fact that equity hedge were the best performing strategies amongst hedge funds but suffered the biggest outflows. Macro, CTAs and multi-strategy attracted more capital this year, and given the outlook for more volatility and less central bank intervention, investors target further allocations in those sub-sectors.

Figure 1. 2017 Hedge Fund Industry Performance, Source: HFR, Stone Mountain Capital Research

Figure 2. 2017 Hedge Fund Industry AUM, Source: Preqin

Stone Mountain Capital Strategies
2017 was the year producing the strongest return for hedge funds since 2013 and second best since 2009. Stone Mountain Capital strategies outperformed in last year’s environment across all asset classes. Credit was the only strategy underperforming its peers, caused by yield compression in the direct lending space. One, out of only three negative strategies was in credit, while the other two, were CTAs that struggled amid the low volatility and trendless environment. Despite these two strategies, tactical trading was overall the best performing strategy with strong returns generated by discretionary global macro and cryptocurrency. Equities enjoyed a very profitable year and Stone Mountain Capital’s mandated equity hedge managers produced astonishing returns, beating their traditional and alternative peers. Finally, fund of hedge funds recovered from their 2016 losses, surviving while the industry’s model is evolving.

Figure 3. Stone Mountain Capital In-House Indices vs. Major Benchmark Indices Hedge Funds and Long Only in 2017, Stone Mountain Capital Research; SMC strategy indices are not investable products but are used as indication of our managers' performance and are calculated with the equally-weighted method.

Figure 4. Distribution Stone Mountain Capital’s 30 Hedge Fund Strategies 2017 Returns, Stone Mountain Capital Research

The Age Of The Machines II: CTA, Bitcoin and Ethereum Markets

16/12/2017

Oliver Fochler
Managing Partner, CEO
Tel.: +44 7922 436360

Alexandros Kyparissis
Analyst Hedge Funds
Tel.: +44 7843 144007

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STONE MOUNTAIN CAPITAL RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE VOL.69

The most popular and controversial topic this year within finance and tech circles is the rise of Bitcoin and crypto markets. Bitcoin jumped into mainstream and financial products like futures, options, funds, certificates, ETNs, ETFs are being designed to allow exposure to cryptocurrencies. The last one and a half month, we evidenced a huge growth of the crypto market, with its capitalisation surpassing $561bn from $182bn on the first day of November. The crypto market metamorphosed into a market bigger than CTAs, a $343bn well-established alternative investment market. Crypto market, according to CoinMarketCap, consists of 1360 cryptocurrencies, but Bitcoin and Ethereum account for around 67% of this market. Bitcoin market cap became almost three times bigger within two months, being a $318bn market now, with its price rising from $6,750 in the first day of November to $18,000. Ethereum was the fourth largest coin market in 2015 behind Bitcoin, Ripple and LiteCoin, but as we approach the end of 2017, the $66bn Ethereum market cap is nearly double of Ripple and Litecoin’s capitalisation combined.

Figure 1. CTA, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and Ethereum Assets under Management ($bn) as of 16/12/2017, Source: Coinmarketcap.com, BarclayHedge, Stone Mountain Capital Research

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Alternative Markets Update - Macro And Political Outlook June 2019

Alternatives Market Review 2018 and Outlook 2019

Alternatives Market Outlook H2 2018

Alternatives Market Review 2017

The Age Of The Machines II: CTA, Bitcoin and Ethereum Markets

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