Hedge funds and China’s stock market: a study on factors influencing investment decisions by fund managersThe research was conducted using a web-based questionnaire sent to all Asia-related hedge funds, worldwide. Analysis of the collected data revealed that the factors influencing the portfolio investments made in China by fund managers differed from the factors which influence investment in global and emerging markets. While market conditions, market timing and changes in earning estimates are the top three influencing factors on investment decisions on global stock exchanges, fund managers are more influenced by global trend, potential growth and company size when dealing with China’s stock market. Research results also support the hypotheses that there are relationships between size of fund, trading style and personal expertise of managers and the factors influencing investment decisions.The international hedge fund industry and China’s stock market are two fast-growing entities of global capital markets. Stronger interaction between these two institutions in the future would create important implications for the financial world. The objective of this research is to identify factors that influence investment decisions by hedge fund managers in relation to China’s stock market.The following implications can be extracted from this research:(1) If China’s stock market is classified within the Emerging Markets Index, adjustments are necessary and provision should be made reflecting investor criteria for China.(2) Global trends and the potential growth of China were the two most attractive factors influencing investment decisions, suggesting a ‘herding’ tendency and ‘attention-grabbing’ bias of hedge fund managers.(3) Company evaluation remains important to hedge fund managers, suggesting that Chinese government regulators should implement reforms to improve quality of listed firms.(4) Gaps in the research on China’s stock market as well as the outcomes of this research indicate that further studies on the international hedge fund industry and China’s stock market could reveal new perspectives and enhancements to the current body of knowledge on these subjects. This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the research context and research justification. The research problem and questions are identified, and the theoretical framework and hypotheses are constructed. Chapter 2 presents an overview of the hedge fund industry and China’s stock market. Chapter 3 examines the literature: factors that influence investment decisions in global, emerging markets and in particular, China’s stock market. A framework of an 8-step decision-making process was developed. Chapter 4 researches alternative methodologies and presents a justification for the selection of the research methodology. Chapter 5 summarises the results of the data analysis and interpretation. Chapter 6 discusses the conclusions, implications, contributions and limitations of the research. Recommendations for further research are also included.The outcomes of this research are expected to benefit all participants of the global financial industry, including institutional and individual investors; executives in banking, insurance and securities businesses; financiers of listed firms and multinational corporations; government regulators and independent research analysts. Other beneficiaries will be academics and the media.

Humboldt-Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2005. / Literaturverz. S. 226 - 241.

Between 1993 and 2016, the U.S. exchange traded fund (ETF) market has proliferated from one product worth $6.5 million USD to 1,455 products worth over $2 trillion USD. Despite its dramatic growth, the ETF market has yet to be the subject of sociological inquiry even though fields such as the social studies of finance have begun examining the origins of index derivatives (Millo 2007), options (MacKenzie 2006), hedge funds (Hardie and MacKenzie 2007), and foreign exchange markets (Knorr Cetina and Bruegger 2002). Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to provide the first historical sociology of ETF innovation in the United States, using an approach inspired by the social studies of finance. This project empirically traces the emergence of the ETF by compiling an account of precursory strategies, concept development, regulatory negotiations, and early product marketing. The concept of agencement is used to frame the historical narrative of the ETF as a product of two distinct assemblages that formed in the U.S. between 1970 and 2000: first, the socio-technical integration between humans and their technologies that affected trading strategies, and second, the collaborative relationships that were formed between innovators and regulators. The mixed qualitative research consists of 36 interviews triangulated with archival records, documents sourced through Freedom of Information Act requests, private collections, and government files. Concluding analysis suggests that strategies foreshadowing the ETF began to emerge as early as the 1970s, and innovator-regulator collaborations were integral to early product qualification - a process not yet explored in literature on financial regulation.

Submitted by Ricardo Porto (ricardoporto@bancobbm.com.br) on 2010-08-23T15:32:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO RICARDO PORTO.pdf: 454076 bytes, checksum: 66bba39f53ab22d9842749c2713ec606 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vitor Souza(vitor.souza@fgv.br) on 2010-08-23T15:34:47Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO RICARDO PORTO.pdf: 454076 bytes, checksum: 66bba39f53ab22d9842749c2713ec606 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2010-08-23T17:42:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO RICARDO PORTO.pdf: 454076 bytes, checksum: 66bba39f53ab22d9842749c2713ec606 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-26 / The Black-Litterman model calculates the expected market returns as a combination of a set of investor views and a neutral reference point. The model uses Bayesian approach to blend both sources of information. The results from the Black-Litterman model, in contrast to the traditional approach, are quite intuitive, stable and consistent with the investors views. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a detailed analysis of each component of the Black-Litterman model and verify if the use of the Black-Litterman model, introducing the views of the market based on the Central Bank report, FOCUS, outperforms brasilians Hegde Funds. / O modelo Black-Litterman calcula os retornos esperados de mercado como uma combinação de um conjunto de expectativas específicas de cada investidor e um ponto de referência neutro. A combinação dessas duas fontes de informações são feitas pelo modelo utilizando a abordagem bayesiana. Os resultados obtidos a partir do modelo Black-Litterman, ao contrário da abordagem tradicional, são bastante intuitivos, estáveis e consistentes em relação as expectativas dos investidores. O objetivo dessa dissertação é fazer uma análise detalhada de cada um dos componentes do modelo Black-Litterman e verificar se a utilização o modelo de Black-Litterman, introduzindo as opiniões de mercado com base no relatório FOCUS do Banco Central, supera o retorno dos fundos multimercados brasileiros.

The aim of this PhD thesis is to analyze the history and current situation of hedge funds and assess their potential to destabilize financial markets. The findings of the analysis are used to validate the assumptions underlying the major regulatory changes of hedge funds in the key global economic centres after the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Since their inception early last century hedge funds have gone through a period of great expansion in the sixties, followed by a decline due to large losses sustained in the early seventies. The nineties meant a real breakthrough for hedge funds as a result of which they became prominent players in the alternative investment space. As of today, there is over ten thousand hedge funds that globally manage close to 3 trillion US dollars. Compared to mutual funds and other financial institutions the volume of assets under management is still relatively small, the rate of growth over the past fifteen years has however been very significant. What is emphasized with respect to the impact of hedge funds on financial markets is the contribution to increasing the liquidity and efficiency and their role on the financial derivatives market where hedge funds are actively involved in the transfer of risk. They are at the same time subject of criticism for their purported destabilizing effect on financial markets and contribution to fluctuations in the prices of investment instruments. Although the share of hedge funds in triggering major financial crises has not been conclusively established, these investment entities were one of the targets of the wide-ranging regulatory changes following the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. The dissertation first discusses the history and current situation of hedge funds and defines the term hedge fund. The following section describes the basic characteristics and principles of their functioning and reviews the regulation in the major domiciles. The final chapter is focused on the empirical analysis of the impact of hedge funds on financial markets. The inputs for this analysis include a global hedge fund index and representative market indices and data from the CFTC on positions in the 10 year US government treasury note futures. In the first step the descriptive statistics for the transformed time series are presented. The second part of the analysis focuses on lagged correlations between returns and volatility of the global hedge fund index and representative market indices. Granger causality tests are applied in the following section to determine the relationships between the returns and volatility of hedge fund and representative market indices. In the final step of the analysis Granger causality tests are used to analyze the link between the changes in positions in the 10-year US treasury note futures held by hedge funds and the change in settlement prices of these futures with the aim to assess whether hedge funds have the capacity to move the market. In conclusion, the results of this analysis are discussed in light of the recent regulatory changes and the potential for the future growth of hedge funds is assessed.

Ce travail de recherche propose de nouveaux outils pour améliorer la prise en compte des caractéristiques spécifiques des hedge funds, dans l'évaluation de leur risque et de leur performance. Tout d'abord, nous mettons en évidence l'intérêt des développements basés sur la théorie des valeurs extrêmes pour analyser et quantifier le risque extrême des hedge funds. Une procédure de backtesting démontre que la valeur en risque, estimée à partir de la distribution de Pareto généralisée s'ajustant aux pertes extrêmes (VaREVT), est plus fiable que les mesures de risque usuelles. Puis, nous suggérons un nouvel indicateur de performance, lequel permet de prendre en compte la non normalité des distributions de rentabilités des hedge funds ainsi que, le niveau de rentabilité minimum acceptable de l'investisseur. Enfin, quatre modèles ont été construits en vue de déterminer les principaux facteurs explicatifs de l'évolution de la rentabilité journalière des stratégies alternatives. Ce dernier point donne l'occasion de mettre en évidence les avantages de la méthode de régression PLS pour identifier les facteurs pertinents. Cette recherche offre, non seulement, des résultats intéressants pour mieux comprendre le monde des hedge funds mais également, de nouvelles perspectives pour l'évaluation du risque et de la performance des autres actifs financiers ayant une distribution de rentabilités leptokurtique et asymétrique.

This thesis is a collection of three essays on hedge funds with contributions to the empirical understanding of their fees, and their voluntary disclosure of returns and assets under management, using a large consolidation of widely-employed publicly available hedge fund databases. First, time-series variation in reported fees is analysed using fund launches within hedge fund management companies, and conditioning fees at launch on fund family characteristics. Larger and better performing fund families launch high fee funds. Funds with high management fees at launch do not perform any differently from low fee funds, though funds with high incentive fees marginally outperform. An interval regression technique is proposed to overcome the discrete nature of reported fees. Secondly, the reliability of voluntary disclosures of financial information is analysed with a different measure of time-variation --- tracking changes to statements of historical performance recorded at different points in time. This uncovers evidence that historical returns are routinely revised. These revisions are not merely random or corrections of earlier mistakes; they are partly forecastable by fund characteristics. Moreover, funds that revise their performance histories, significantly and predictably underperform those that have never revised. Finally, the availability, and timing, of the selective disclosure of assets under management by funds is examined. More than a third of funds have asset records falling short of returns published. There is evidence of strategic disclosure by funds --- asset reporting drying up after times of fund stress, such as poor performance or outflows. Furthermore, investors should take heed of the greater propensity for shortfall funds to trigger fraud performance flags. These results suggest that unreliable disclosures: constitute a valuable source of information for current and potential investors; have implications for researchers; and, exhort market regulators to include assets, not just returns, in the debate around mandatory disclosure by financial institutions.

O trabalho tem por objeto a observação e o debate do tema hedge funds, com foco no ordenamento legal brasileiro e auxílio do direito comparado. Inicia-se com conceitos gerais dos hedge funds em sede internacional. Analisam-se então dados e informações históricos, práticos e legislativos a respeito dos hedge funds nos Estados Unidos da América e dos fondi speculativi na Itália. Com base na prática estrangeira, a dissertação aborda problemas jurídicos potenciais ocasionados pelas estruturas dos hedge funds, em especial no que tange os possíveis conflitos de interesse entre gestores e investidores (moral hazard, competição). Considera a relação entre risco sistêmico e hedge funds. Analisa o regime institucional e legal dos fundos de investimento brasileiros, em especial os regulados pela ICVM 409/06. Indica a classe Fundos de Investimento Multimercado como a mais próxima do conceito de hedge fund. Considera o papel da CVM, da auto-regulação, do gestor, do administrador, do investidor qualificado e do investidor superqualificado. Aponta a disciplina pública e privada dos intermediários financeiros como meio eficiente para controle e tutela dos hedge funds e seus investidores. Conclui criticando o equilíbrio entre regulação estatal e disciplina privada. / Ce mémoire a pour objet lanalyse et le débat sur le thème des hedge funds, et se concentre à cet égard, sur les principes et les règles de lordre juridique brésilien et accessoirement sur le droit comparé. Le Mémoire débute par la présentation des concepts généraux dêx hedge funds sur la scène internationale, en étudiant, ainsi, les données et informations historiques, pratiques, mais aussi législatives des hedge funds aux Etats-Unis dAmérique ainsi que des fondi speculativi en Italie. En se fondant sur la pratique étrangère, cette étude aborde donc, les problèmes juridiques potentiels occasionnés par de telles structures, et plus particulièrement celui des conflits dintérêts possibles entre géstionnaires et investisseurs (moral hazard, concurrence). Le Mémoire considère alors, la relation entre les risques systémiques et les Hedge Funds. Il analyse le régime institutionnel et légal des fonds dinvestissement au Brésil, notamment des fonds régis par lInstruction Normative de la CVM Comissão de Valores Mobiliários ICVM409/06. De surcroît, il considère la classe des Fonds de Couverture Multimarchés (Fundos de Investimento Multimercado) comme la plus proche du concept de hedge fund. Il estime que la CVM a un rôle dautorégulation, de gestionnaire, dadministrateur, dinvestisseur qualifié, mais aussi dinvestisseur super-qualifié. Il envisage le secteur public et privé des intermédiaires financiers comme un moyen efficace pour le contrôle et la tutelle des hedge funds et des investisseurs. Et finalement, le Mémoire sachève en critiquant léquilibre entre la régulation étatique et le secteur privé.

During the work of this research project we were interested in mathematical techniques that give us an insight to the following questions: How do we understand the trading decisions made by a manager of a hedge fund and what influences these decisions? In what way does an illiquid market affect these decisions and the performance of the fund? And how does the payment scheme affect the investor's decisions? Based on existing work on hedge fund management, we start with a fund that can be modelled with one risky investment and one riskless investment. Next, subject to the hedge fund special reward scheme we maximise the expected utility of wealth of the manager, by controlling the percentage invested in the risky investment, namely the portfolio. We use stochastic control techniques to derive a partial differential equation (PDE) and numerically obtain its corresponding viscosity solution, which provides a weak notion of solutions to these PDEs. This is then taken to a liquidity constrained scenario, to compare the behaviour of the two scenarios. Using the same approach as before we notice that due to the liquidity restriction we cannot use a simple model to combine the risky and riskless investments as a total amount, and hence the PDE is one order higher than before. We then model an investor who is investing in the hedge fund subject to the manager's optimal portfolio decisions, with similar mathematical tools as before. Comparisons between the investor's expected utility of wealth and the utility of having the money invested in the risk-free investment suggests that, in some cases, the investor is paying more to the manager than the return he is receiving for having invested in the hedge fund, compared to a risk-free investment. For that reason we propose a strategic game where the manager's action is to allocate the money between the two assets and the investor's action is to add money to the fund when he expects profit. The result is that the investor profits from the option to reinvest in the fund, although in some extreme cases the actions of the manager make the investor receive a negative value for having the option.

<p>Hedge funds are a debated subject in today’s financial industry. During 2008, despite hedge funds absolute return target, the global hedge fund industry showed a negative performance whilst the Swedish hedge fund market performed relatively well in comparison. Many studies have been made investigating the effect on incorporating hedge funds in a traditional portfolio though none focused separately on the Swedish market. In a global perspective it is quite easy to invest in hedge fund portfolios due to the existence of investable indices. To invest on the Swedish market is a more complex matter. SIX Harcourt HFXS Index is a Swedish hedge fund index representing the Swedish hedge fund market though it is not investable. Hence it would be interesting to see if it is possible to create an investable version of SIX Harcourt HFXS. When creating an investable index, several administrative costs will arise and in order to cover these costs it would be interesting to see whether or not it possible to optimize SIX Harcourt HFXS Index in purpose of achieving a outperformance which could cover any administrative costs for setting up the investable version. Also, since the optimized version must replicate the standard SIX Harcourt HFXS Index it must maintain a certain level of correlation.</p><p>This thesis, which is based on a positivistic epistemology, is built upon a quantitative case study where SIX Harcourt HFXS Index is optimized in purpose of achieving an outperformance in terms of the risk-adjusted return. The optimization uses an adjusted mean-variance methodology and is limited to a maintained correlation above 0,9 towards the standard SIX Harcourt HFXS Index. The optimization is created through the use of an Excel application created by Harcourt Investment Consulting.</p><p>Also, based on the outperformance by Swedish hedge funds compared to global hedge funds, this study aims to show the effect of incorporating Swedish hedge funds in a traditional portfolio consisting of equities and bonds. This effect is analyzed by the use of several performance-and risk measures.</p><p>The study shows that it is possible to optimize SIX Harcourt HFXS Index and produce an outperformance of approximately 1,5% per annum with a maintained correlation above 0,9. It also shows that the effect of incorporating Swedish hedge funds to a traditional portfolio is positive in regards to both risk and return.</p>