Of an option, to put into effect the right to buy or sell at the strike price.

Basel III – Leitfaden zu den neuen Eigenkapital- und Liquiditätsregeln für Banken

unsere aktuelle brokerbase network market statistics für die Indices

NASDAQ100 nas100_statistics

TECDAX tecdax_statistics

SMI smi_statistics

SDAX sdax_statistics

S&P 500 s&p_statistics

DOW Jones 30 dow_statistics

MDAX mdax_statistics

DAX 30 dax_statistics

sind online !!!

This week, more than 100 budding new hedge fund managers will meet prospective investors in Rye, N.Y. to try to persuade them to hand over some of their capital.
This so-called capital introduction conference, organized by Morgan Stanley, attracted about 500 investors last year and it will probably be busy again this year.
But beyond the pitches and presentations on Sept. 21 and 22, a problem will lurk. There’s not much money to back all these new managers.
“There are a number of new fund launches, some coming off banks’ prop trading desks,” said Jeff Fulk of Signet Group, which invests in hedge funds. “But it’s a very difficult environment for raising capital.”
Starting a hedge fund used to be a lot easier. In 2005, a record 2,073 launched, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research. TPG-Axon, run by former Goldman Sachs trader Dinakar Singh, raised about $5 billion that year. In 2004, Eric Mindich, another top Goldman trader, launched Eton Park Capital with $3.5 billion, a record at the time. However, the financial crisis in 2008 triggered big investor redemptions that left the average hedge fund down almost 20%. That year, there were only 659 hedge-fund launches. Hedge funds returns improved in 2009 and there were almost 800 launches last year. In the first quarter of 2010, 254 new hedge funds were started, while 201 launched in the second quarter, according to HFR.
–
“When you’re small and starting out below $100 million, it’s very hard,” Levy said. “Pension funds won’t really look at you unless you’re over $500 million or even $1 billion.” A lot of pension funds are restricted from being more than about 10% of a hedge fund’s total assets. But because such institutions oversee so much money, they have to invest at least $10 million at a time. Hence the $100 million threshold.
–
This trend started before the financial crisis in 2008, according to Ted Seides, senior managing director at Protege Partners, which allocates money to smaller hedge funds and provides start-up, or “seed” capital for new managers.
–
The Volcker rule, a new financial law in the U.S., limits banks’ ability to trade with their own money — known as proprietary, or prop, trading. That’s encourage some prop traders to leave and start their own hedge funds.
–
Hedge funds usually charge annual management fees of about 2% and take 20% or so of any profit each year as a performance fee. However, when funds lose money, they usually miss out on incentive fees until returns climb back over the previous high, known as the high-water mark. Some funds haven’t recouped 2008 losses, so they’re still not collecting performance fees. If traders leave and start their own fund from scratch, performance fees are potentially only one good year away.
–
Copia also developed an infrastructure that helps the firm show investors how it generates returns and makes them comfortable the process is sustainable, Graham Cook, partner—business development, said. Investors can also go directly to Copia’s prime brokers to check the value of the firm’s positions against the results it reports, Cook added. “We wanted to establish a bullet-proof institutional asset-management business,” Cook explained. “We focused on existing relationships, and only recently have we been reaching out to other investors.” Copia is now focusing capital-raising efforts on consultants that advise pension funds on direct hedge fund investments and on funds of funds that may benefit from increased pension allocations, he added.
–
Citadel LLC, run by Ken Griffin, is hiring traders in New York, Boston and Dallas to run some of the money in its main hedge funds, Wellington and Kensington.
The new effort is known as Pioneer Path and Surveyor Capital. New traders get to use Citadel’s infrastructure, such as back-office and legal support. If they generate strong returns, the firm may consider spinning them out as new hedge funds in the future. Blackstone Group launched the latest version of its Strategic Alliance fund earlier this year. This vehicle usually provides about $100 million of so-called seed capital to new hedge funds. In return, the Blackstone fund gets a portion of the revenue generated by the new funds. The first Blackstone Strategic Alliance fund started in 2001 and generated strong returns. Blackstone Strategic Alliance Fund II LP launched earlier this year, according to a regulatory filing in May. Firms that specialize in seeding, such as Protege Partners, are also stepping in to fill the capital void. In the past, seeding firms were thought to suffer from adverse selection. The best new hedge funds raised money quickly, leaving seeding firms to back lesser funds.
Source : marketwatch

–
In the event of a double-dip recession, Treasury bonds will still provide an “offset,” but at current valuations, investors are “paying a stiff price for that insurance,” Mr. Siegel, a senior adviser to WisdomTree, New York, said in a telephone interview.

While individual investors have been leading the charge into Treasuries this year, with an equity risk premium of roughly 6%, institutional investors might well consider shifting some money to stocks from bonds, he said.
–
In a subsequent interview, Mr. DeLucia said if not technically a bubble, then those bonds are at least “significantly overvalued,” perhaps by a standard deviation or two. Individual investors are at the front of the pack, but institutional investment managers — who, despite having long-term mandates, are also judged on short-term performance — are probably contributing to the run-up in Treasury bond prices as well, he said.
–
The move to higher-yielding bonds is just one response as pension executives struggle to generate needed income amid the likelihood of a considerable period of little to no growth or inflation, agreed Robert Michele, global CIO in J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s global fixed-income group in New York.
SOurce

CESR’s guidelines concerning eligible assets for investment by UCITS
CESR’s guidelines concerning eligible assets for investment by UCITS-The classification of hedge fund indices as financial indices

BIS – Supervisory Guidance for Assessing Banks’ Financial Instrument Fair Value Practices

Der jährliche Treibstoffverbrauch des Lufthansa Konzerns lag im Geschäftsjahr 2008 bei etwa 7,9 Millionen Tonnen Kerosin. Er stellt für den Lufthansa Konzern eine wesentliche Aufwandsposition dar. Starke Veränderungen der Treibstoffpreise können somit das betriebliche Ergebnis erheblich beeinflussen. Lufthansa setzt deswegen eine regelbasierte Treibstoffpreis-Sicherung mit einem Zeithorizont von 24 Monaten ein. Ziel ist es, die Schwankungen der Treibstoffpreise zu verringern. Die Sicherungen erfolgen überwiegend in Rohöl, nach Möglichkeit ergänzt um die Preisdifferenz Kerosin zu Rohöl.

Bei der Treibstoffabsicherung bedient sich Lufthansa der üblichen Marktinstrumentarien wie Terminkontrakten und Optionen. Lufthansa sichert mit einem Vorlauf von 24 Monaten jeweils monatlich 4,8 Prozent der geplanten Menge in Brent-Collars bis zu einem Sicherungsgrad von 85 Prozent. Den Sicherungsgeschäften liegt also eine feste Regel zugrunde, sie bilden somit einen Durchschnittskurs der Rohölpreise ab. Die auf einen Zeitpunkt folgenden sechs Monate sind daher zu 85 Prozent gesichert.

Als ergänzende Maßnahme zur Risikoreduktion hat sich der Treibstoffzuschlag im Markt etabliert. Es ist jedoch ungewiss, in welchem Umfang sich der Zuschlag je nach Entwicklung der Treibstoffpreise und des konjunkturellen Umfeldes durchsetzen lässt.

Folgende Grafik stellt den Treibstoffaufwand nach Hedging unter Annahme verschiedener Ölpreisszenarien dar.

Ölpreisszenario Lufthansa Konzern
Stand 11. März 2009

Quelle Lufthansa

Tokyo Stock Exchange to pick up speed with new trading system in 2010

The Tokyo Stock Exchange will launch a new high-speed trading system Monday, scrapping an antiquated, glitch-prone platform for one that aims to compete with major global rivals.
–
which can process trades in five milliseconds. That is 600 times faster than the two to three-seconds required until now, and roughly on par with its counterparts in New York and London.
–
With the upgrade, the exchange hopes to lure traders who use automated computer programs to make rapid and frequent transactions. Algorithmic trading, commonly used by institutional investors like pension funds, accounts for the majority of equity trading in the U.S. and Europe but has been slow to catch on in Asia.