The benchmarking consultation paper from ESMA/EBA has produced intriguing responses from, among others, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the EDHEC-Risk Institute.

A newly released paper concludes that the returns many mutual funds make from lending their portfolio securities increase as the directors on their boards become more independent. Separately, it is a good sign if the directors have, as the saying goes, 'skin in the game.'

The development of offshore banking centers, and the diplomatic pressures brought to bear upon them, are such that individual relationship managers may no longer “be able to serve clients from a large number of domiciles because regulatory compliance will become more complex and country-specific – making it impossible to master the distinct requirements of many different client domiciles,” according to the Boston Consulting Group. That is one of many keep-your-chin-up injunctions throughout this report.

The Clearing House Association has filed an amicus brief in the NML litigation, effectively acting on behalf of its member banks, arguing that the pari passu language in the bonds issued by Argentina in the 1990s folllowed “standard language included in substantially the same form in numerous credit documents,” and contending that a decision upholding the district court would upset “the long-understood meaning of these clauses in the market.”

The Grant Thornton paper maintains that the asset management industry achieved "performance and operational efficiencies" during 2011, and this sounds like the sort of marginal adaptation that play a large part in Charles Darwins' writings, to which GT's Winstoin Wilson alluded. But ... the report also treats the regulatory environment as a meteor, capable of wiping out even the best-adapted of pre-collision dinosaurs. So "the Darwinian process" is an odd label for what it describes.

AAA sat down with Alex Gurvich and Jim Mitchell, both of The Rockledge Group, an investment advisory firm headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. We began by discussing the mid-January launch of a new product that gives the long-short equity strategy an ETF format, and ended up talking about a good deal else, such as the inherent superiority of ETFs over mutual funds, and Pimco's recent recognition of that fact.

Bandon Capital's managing directors believe it is possible to generate alpha from unique non-market sources, and that they do so through their forecasts of domestic and overseas sovereign interest rates.

A new study from SEI shows If an alternative strategy can be offered in a mutual fund structure it has a much broader market opportunity than if not. Hedge fund managers want the mutual fund market just as mutual fund managers want to use the broader hedge fund range of strategies.

This is the first in a series of real estate articles by new editorial board member Jan B. Brzeski, Principal at Arixa Capital Advisors, LLC, Los Angeles, CA.

In any economic system, the fixed-income market plays an essential role as one of the principal ways of financing enterprise (be it corporate or sovereign).  Research shows that at the end of 2010, the global bond market had amounts outstanding of over US$95 trillion (to put that in context, the World Bank reported the total [...]

According to the latest research, confidence in family office investing is back.

This is the first of a new series called "Alpha Hunters." The nimble qualities of alternative investments is part of what makes them essential to every investor's portfolio. They can move quickly to take advantage of market inefficiencies and go where other more traditional investment vehicles cannot. It is in the spirit of seeking the ever-moving alpha that we introduce this series, reaching out to experts in different strategies to see where they are finding alpha. We hope you find this series illuminating and please feel free to send suggestions for Alpha Hunters you'd like to read about. Kristin Fox Managing Editor

Clients, according to a surprising new report, aren't too keen on alpha at the moment.

Ten years ago, the prevailing thought was that pigs would fly before alternative investments became a mainstream staple for investment advisers. According to the latest research from Cerulli, it’s time for air traffic controllers to wake up because they’re going to have to integrate Dreamliner-sized porkers into flight patterns and guide them into safe landings [...]

The hedge fund industry has an occasional obsession with exotic risk metrics (VaR, Conditional VaR, Omega Ratio, higher moments, etc.).  These make a lot of sense if you have a few Ph.D.’s on staff (read: you’re a large institutional investor).  But what if you need to explain the non-market-tracking nature of a hedge fund to [...]

Mutual funds with a high "active share" are once again found to produce higher and more persistent returns - the two basic constituents of alpha. So why is closet indexing as popular as ever? And what does this portend for hedge funds?

The Dodd-Frank Act requires hedge fund to register with the SEC. But it also nearly also forced America's 4,000 family offices to do the same. That got the SEC is wondering: What exactly is a family office anyway?

Despite a lot of chatter and an assortment of industry surveys, some still say there hasn't yet been a "comprehensive overview of the differences and similarities of alternative UCITS funds and hedge funds" - until now...

Mutual funds have learned that holding stock market "darlings" is bad for performance, but good for marketing. Thankfully for hedge funds, less transparency may have allowed them to avoid this trap.

A recent survey finds that UCITS-compliant hedge funds are still drawing crowds - despite a few rough edges here and there.

A new research paper suggests mutual funds that adopt hedge fund-like strategies were aided by their short positions - especially during the financial crisis.

Past research has shown that when mutual fund companies offer hedge funds, mutual fund performance suffers. But a new study finds that when individual mutual fund managers also manage hedge funds, this actually helps the mutual fund performance.

Usually the term "exotic beta" is associated with hedge funds. Finally, it's being applied to the largest pool of active management - mutual funds.

The expected EU Directive in addition to generally more heightened demand for regulatory compliant alternative investments has already set in motion a wave of so-called UCITS- and NEWCITS-based funds. The question is whether they can truly live up to expectations, particularly with higher costs and lower returns?

As investors reflect on last year, they are apparently of two minds regarding hedge funds.

The allure of making big money and being your own boss was plenty to lure many a mutual fund manager to the hedge fund world. The reality, according to a new study published last month, is that there was almost no way to obtain the same level of compensation or better.

Are "hedged mutual funds" finally ready for prime time?

A recent report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch show that wealth managers may have stopped listening to clients at exactly the wrong moment.

Two different surveys paint a picture of concerned hedge fund managers - even though private bankers see continuing value in their craft.

Convergence can apparently be a very messy thing.

Hedge funds are on an AUM diet these days. But have investor redemptions been a result of the underlying investment strategies used by hedge funds or the result of the fund structures themselves?

Many say that the ability to dial back on beta is the hallmark of active management. But some recent research finds that this flexibility hasn't paid off when needed most.

Too little, too late? Putnam swims against the current with a new fund that contains a sort of "hidden hedge fund" inside it.

With the world of hedge funds and traditional long-only funds hurtling into each other, we examine some of the conflicts of interest and performance implications of hedge funds and mutual funds co-habitating.

An upcoming article in the Journal of Investing questions the value of non-fee-based financial advisors.

Like hedge funds, mutual funds are finding true alpha harder to come by. But you might be surprised to learn who is to blame.

“SMAs grow up and learn to play nicely in the advisory community” By: Janet Aschkenasy, Wealth Manager Magazine Published: January 1, 2007 While institutional investors have been busy debating the merits of bifurcating alpha and beta, the wealth management industry has inadvertently stumbled upon an enabling technology that may someday bring alpha-centric investing to the masses.  New information [...]