Understanding Trend Following: A Strategic Diversifier for Modern Portfolios
The Meketa Investment Group’s December 2025 whitepaper examines trend‑following strategies over the 2000‑mid‑2025 period, reporting an annualized 4.9% return with 13.4% volatility—positioned between U.S. bonds and global equities. The research highlights “crisis alpha,” showing positive gains during the dot‑com bust, the Global Financial Crisis, the COVID‑19 market shock, and the 2022‑23 rate‑hike cycle, which helps explain roughly $350 billion of assets allocated to such managers. It also uncovers significant manager dispersion, driven by six design choices, and demonstrates that modest trend‑following allocations improve the risk‑adjusted profile of a traditional 60/40 portfolio.
Where Is Money Flowing Today?
Finviz’s intraday heatmap shows capital gravitating toward technology and consumer‑discretionary stocks, while energy, utilities and several small‑cap names lag behind. The visualization highlights a pronounced rally in mega‑caps such as Apple and Microsoft, contrasted with broad weakness in commodity‑linked equities....
Alcur Elevates Flöstrand to CIO One Year After Joining
Alcur Fonder promoted portfolio manager Per Flöstrand to Chief Investment Officer, succeeding co‑founder Johan Klevby who will stay on the investment team. Flöstrand, a former ABG Sundal Collier executive, moves into the role just over a year after joining the firm. The...
Month in Review – March 2026
March 2026 marked a sharp downturn for Nordic hedge funds, with the Nordic Hedge Index slipping 2.6% amid the Middle East conflict that closed the Strait of Hormuz. All five strategy sub‑indices posted losses, though CTAs, macro and managed futures...
BlackRock Issues “Crowding” Warning for Hedge Funds:
BlackRock’s Spring Hedge Fund Outlook warns that multi‑strategy “pod” hedge funds are far more crowded and correlated than traditional diversification metrics suggest. Shared data sets, AI‑driven models and common macro narratives cause independent pods to take near‑identical positions, raising the...
What Daniel Loeb’s Latest Letter Reveals About Market Risk and AI
Daniel Loeb’s Q1 2026 investor letter outlines a risk‑first framework that helped Third Point post a modest decline while still beating the market. The firm began trimming positions in February, ahead of a private‑credit unwind and an Iran‑driven oil price...
Archipelago Adds Firepower After Back-to-Back Strong Years
Archipelago Investments has bolstered its research team by hiring Anders Fagerlund as Senior Analyst and Head of Research. Fagerlund arrives after 15 years as a senior fund manager at AMF Fonder and a decade at UBS covering European capital goods....
SS&C GlobeOp: Hedge Fund Capital Flows Turn Positive:
SS&C GlobeOp's Capital Movement Index shows hedge fund net inflows turned positive in April after March's -1.79% gross return. Institutional investors are allocating more to hedged, market‑neutral and multi‑strategy funds as macro volatility rises. The shift reflects a strategic move...
Do You Believe in the Long-Term Growth Potential of Marsh & McLennan Companies (MRSH)?
Oakmark Fund’s Q1 2026 letter announced a new position in Marsh & McLennan Companies (MRSH), a $84 billion‑market‑cap insurance broker. The fund outperformed the S&P 500, posting a –2.47% return versus the index’s –4.33% for the quarter. Marsh’s stock closed at $173.55, up 0.94%...
Oakmark Fund Picks Roper Technologies (ROP) on Varied Growth Drivers
Oakmark Fund’s Q1 2026 letter highlighted a new position in Roper Technologies (NASDAQ:ROP), a diversified vertical‑software and technology‑enabled products company. The fund outperformed the S&P 500, returning –2.47% versus the index’s –4.33% for the quarter. Oakmark praised Roper’s strong margins,...
Accenture (ACN) Is Trading at a Low Valuation Multiple Despite Strong Fundamentals
Oakmark Fund’s Q1 2026 letter highlighted Accenture (NYSE:ACN) as a high‑quality, large‑cap tech services play that is trading at its lowest price‑to‑earnings multiple since 2015. The company posted $18.7 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 6% in USD, and its market...
Strategic Mix Led Oakmark Fund’s Sysco Corporation (SYY) Addition
Oakmark Fund’s Q1 2026 investor letter announced a new holding in Sysco Corporation, a leading food‑service distributor. The fund outperformed the S&P 500, posting a –2.47% return versus the index’s –4.33% for the quarter. Sysco closed the month at $73.36 per share,...
Is Synchrony Financial (SYF) an Underappreciated Stock?
Oakmark Fund’s Q1 2026 letter highlighted Synchrony Financial (SYF) as an undervalued large‑cap play. The consumer‑finance firm closed at $68.02 on April 13, delivering a 13.3% one‑month gain and a 55.3% rise over the past year. SYF’s market cap stands at roughly...
What Gives Netflix (NFLX) a Valuable Moat?
Oakmark Fund’s Q1 2026 letter added Netflix as a new holding, citing its 325 million subscriber base and $45 billion in revenue as a durable moat. The fund outperformed the S&P 500, returning –2.47% versus the index’s –4.33%, and highlighted Netflix’s stock at...
Salesforce (CRM) Traded Lower Due to Market Fears Over AI Disruption
Oakmark Fund’s Q1 2026 letter flagged Salesforce (CRM) as its top detractor, with the stock sliding 11.5% in the past month and down 32.2% over the last year. Despite the price weakness, the cloud‑software giant posted solid quarterly results, improving margins...
From Zero Rates to Volatility: Excalibur at 25
Excalibur Fixed Income, Sweden’s second‑longest‑running hedge fund, marks its 25‑year anniversary. In 2025 the strategy posted an 11.1% return, nearly double its 5‑6% target and its strongest performance since 2009. The outperformance reflects the return of higher interest rates and...
Two Allocators, One View: Liquidity, Cost and Control Behind CTA ETF Adoption
Institutional investors such as Sweden’s AP3 and Norway’s Aars family office are increasingly turning to trend‑following CTA ETFs to boost liquidity, cut costs, and maintain full portfolio transparency. Both firms view the ETF format as a practical complement to in‑house...
Capitalising on the Emerging Market Resurgence
BlueBay Emerging Market Unconstrained Bond Fund won the Hedge Journal’s 2026 UCITS Hedge Award for best risk‑adjusted returns in the emerging‑market credit space. The fund posted mid‑to‑high‑teens annual returns in 2023, 2024 and 2025—about three times its cash‑plus‑4‑6% target—while expanding...
Point72 Takes Early Q1 Lead Over Citadel and Millennium:
Point72 has emerged as the early 2026 performance leader among multi‑manager hedge‑fund platforms, outpacing rivals Citadel and Millennium. The firm’s edge stems from aggressive AI‑infrastructure exposure and a highly adaptive pod‑shop model that reallocates capital swiftly. Elevated equity dispersion this...
Goldman Sachs’ Private Credit Fund Weathers “Redemption Wave”
Goldman Sachs Private Credit Corp successfully fulfilled all first‑quarter redemption requests, drawing down just 4.999% of its 5% quarterly limit. In contrast, peers such as Blue Owl and Apollo imposed gates as redemption pressure mounted across the private‑credit sector. Goldman’s...
Hedge Funds Pivot Bullish on Geopolitical Hopes:
Hedge funds have flipped from defensive short‑bias to net‑long exposure for the first time in eight weeks, spurred by optimism that diplomatic talks may defuse tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. Goldman Sachs’ client note cites aggressive short covering and...
BlackRock’s Unprecedented Bid for a Stake in Millennium: A Defining Moment in Hedge Fund Institutionalization:
BlackRock is in advanced talks to acquire a minority stake in Millennium Management, marking the hedge fund’s first acceptance of outside equity in its 35‑year history. The partnership would give the world’s largest asset manager direct access to Millennium’s multi‑manager...
Citadel’s Fixed Income Fund Takes an 8.2% Hit: Inside the Volatility Shock That Rocked the World’s Most Sophisticated Pod Shop:
Citadel’s Global Fixed Income strategy posted an 8.2% loss in March, the sharpest drawdown for the unit in recent years. The decline was driven by a sudden repricing of bonds as oil‑price spikes raised inflation expectations and forced a steepening...
The Hedge Algo Made More During Correction Months than Most Swing Portfolios Made All Year
The proprietary hedge algorithm, running alongside swing‑trading positions, generated roughly $1,500 per lot in 2024, $1,500 in 2025, and $888 in the first quarter of 2026, with a standout $1,080 profit during the Oct‑Nov 2024 correction and $660 in March...
CoT: Peek Into Future Through Futures, How Hedge Funds Are Positioned
Hedge funds (non‑commercial speculators) have deepened their bearish bets on long‑duration Treasuries, pushing net short positions in 10‑year note futures to 823.6 k contracts—a 5% weekly rise—and expanding 30‑year shorts to 59 k, up 86% week‑over‑week. In commodities, they remain net long...
TRUST COMPANY OF TENNESSEE - Filing for Period Ending 03/31/2026
Trust Company of Tennessee reported a $540 million portfolio in its Q1 2026 13F filing, up from $500 million a quarter earlier. The fund’s holdings are fully concentrated in its top ten ETFs, with Invesco’s S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) representing 35.43% of...
Point72 Joins $400M Bet on RISC-V Architecture:
Point72's venture arm, Point72 Turion, has joined NVIDIA and Apollo Global Management in a $400 million Series G financing of SiFive, the leading RISC‑V processor developer. The round underscores a growing hedge‑fund focus on "agentic AI" infrastructure—hardware designed for autonomous, decision‑making AI...
How to Hedge Against a War
ManGroup proposes a dedicated WarHedge portfolio that seeks to profit from geopolitical conflict while dampening overall market risk. Over an 8,000‑day back‑test the strategy generated a 7.8% compound annual growth rate with only 5.4% volatility, compared with a 9.1% return...
Ackman’s $64 Billion Activist Play:
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square is reportedly orchestrating a $64 billion activist‑driven restructuring of a major entertainment conglomerate, potentially the largest such play in modern markets. Unlike his traditional short‑term governance pushes, the plan focuses on long‑duration value reconstruction, echoing Warren Buffett’s...
Hedge Funds Hit by “Heaviest Drawdown” In 4 Years:
April 2026 saw hedge funds endure their steepest monthly drawdown since 2022, with an average loss of about 7.8% across the industry. The decline was driven by a perfect storm of heightened geopolitical tensions, multi‑year high currency volatility, and persistent...
Grid Trading Strategies: A Systematic Approach for Fund Managers
Grid trading builds a lattice of buy and sell orders at preset price intervals, letting positions profit from ordinary market oscillations without forecasting direction. The approach shines in sideways or range‑bound markets, where traditional trend‑following models often stall. Fund managers...
Where Is Money Flowing Today?
A Finviz‑sourced heat map released today visualizes where investors are allocating capital across U.S. equities. The graphic shows strong net inflows into large‑cap technology, especially AI‑focused chip makers, while energy stocks register notable outflows as oil prices dip. Financials benefit...
Pershing Square's UMG Takeover Bid Includes $879M for Artists
Pershing Square, led by Bill Ackman, has submitted an unsolicited $64.4 billion takeover bid for Universal Music Group. The proposal hinges on cashing out UMG's $3.1 billion Spotify stake, which would generate roughly $1.75 billion after taxes. Of that, $879 million is earmarked for...
Maybe CTA Alpha Is Simpler Than You Think: Evidence From the ETF Space
Andrew Beer examines whether the simplicity of CTA ETFs translates into superior alpha. Using Morningstar data, he compares equally weighted composites of US mutual funds, UCITS funds and CTA ETFs against the SG CTA index, the benchmark of the twenty...
Lynx Marches Through March Mayhem
In March, heightened U.S.-Israel-Iran tensions sparked energy price spikes and market dislocations, yet Lynx Asset Management’s systematic funds posted solid gains. Lynx Systematic Macro delivered a 14.7% return, Lynx Constellation rose 7.2%, and the flagship Lynx trend‑following program added 2.4%....
The Music Business Has a Problem. Bill Ackman Just Pounced
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management has submitted a $64 billion offer to acquire Universal Music Group, representing a 77% premium over the current share price. Ackman, who holds a 4.7% stake and previously served on UMG’s board, plans to relocate...
Universal Should Say No to Bill Ackman
Pershing Square, led by activist investor Bill Ackman, has tabled a $64 billion offer to acquire Universal Music Group, the world’s largest recorded‑music company. The proposal, announced in early April 2026, would merge two of the industry’s biggest catalog owners and...
Pareto Pure Alpha Portfolios — April 2026
Pareto Investor’s April 2026 update shows its four Pure Alpha portfolios delivering mixed YTD results amid heightened macro volatility. The Momentum portfolio leads with a 23% gain YTD and a 105% return over the past 12 months, while Growth and...
Mixed March for Managed Futures
March’s managed‑futures landscape was dominated by heightened geopolitical risk after the US and Israel struck Iran, sparking cross‑asset volatility. Nordic CTAs slipped modestly, with trend‑following managers posting losses while non‑trend, especially machine‑learning strategies, generated strong gains. Energy markets rallied, offsetting...
Citadel’s $5 Billion “Give-Back” — Capital Discipline Reshapes the Hedge Fund Liquidity Cycle:
Citadel announced a $5 billion profit give‑back to investors in early 2026, underscoring its commitment to capital discipline. By trimming excess assets, the firm seeks to protect alpha generation and avoid performance dilution across its multi‑manager platform. The distribution injects liquidity...
Steve Cohen’s “Sports-as-an-Asset” Strategy — The Institutionalization of Sports as an Alternative Investment Class:
Steve Cohen is turning his ownership of the New York Mets and stakes in the PGA Tour, TGL and related ventures into a diversified, institutional‑grade sports platform. By bundling media rights, data analytics and betting infrastructure, he treats sports franchises...
Two Sigma’s “AI-First” Internal Mandate — The Race for “Operational Alpha” In the Age of Frontier Models:
Two Sigma has issued an internal "AI‑first" mandate, requiring every employee to embed frontier AI models—especially large language models—into daily workflows. The firm calls the resulting efficiency boost "operational alpha," a systematic edge that compounds across research, engineering, compliance and...
Quant Funds Face a “Capacity Squeeze”: When Too Much Capital Threatens Alpha:
Quantitative funds are confronting a capacity squeeze as surging investor demand threatens the very alpha that made them attractive. Managers such as Renaissance Technologies, Two Sigma, and D.E. Shaw are closing funds, raising minimums, and limiting inflows to preserve performance....
There Can Only Be One
The managed‑future (CTA) industry has moved from a niche, high‑fee boutique model to an increasingly institutionalized landscape, culminating in the launch of trend‑following ETFs. These ETFs offer investors higher liquidity, lower fees—often under 100 basis points—and comparable returns to traditional...
Ares Management Reports Soft Q1 Performance Income:
Ares Management reported preliminary Q1 2026 realized net performance income of $75 million, up from $41 million a year earlier but shy of analysts’ roughly $100 million forecast. The shortfall stems from the timing of exits in its European‑style funds, which generate lumpy...
Distressed Hedge Funds “Circle” Private Credit: A New Cycle of Opportunity Emerges:
Distressed hedge funds such as Strategic Value Partners are shifting focus to private credit as early signs of stress appear after years of rapid growth and loose underwriting. Redemption pressures and higher borrowing costs are exposing liquidity mismatches and credit‑quality...
Be in the Know. 12 Key Reads for Monday…
Investors poured record money into a Hong Kong tech ETF despite regional volatility, while hedge funds are rapidly shedding equity positions, with trend‑following managers shorting roughly $190 billion of stocks. Dividend‑focused funds attracted strong inflows as investors chase safety, and Morgan...
SMA Capital Drives Protean Select to Lower Capacity Limit
Protean Select, the long/short equity hedge fund launched in 2022, is cutting its capacity limit from SEK 2 billion (≈$220 million) to SEK 1 billion (≈$110 million) as assets near the new cap. The fund now manages roughly SEK 970 million (≈$107 million) and has halted...
The “Second-Tier” Multi-Manager Surge: Hedge Fund Capital Flows Find a New Frontier:
The hedge fund industry is witnessing a shift as flagship multi‑manager platforms such as Citadel and Millennium hit capacity limits and begin returning capital. Institutional investors are redirecting sizable inflows toward “second‑tier” multi‑manager firms like Balyasny, Schonfeld and ExodusPoint, which...
David Abrams Portfolio Analysis: Key Positions, Concentration & Value Strategy
Abrams Capital Management reported a $5.67 billion equity portfolio that remains extremely concentrated, with the top ten holdings accounting for roughly 99% of assets. The fund’s core positions are dominated by Loar Holdings, Lithia Motors, and other automotive‑related companies, while modest...