Products May 23, 2003

One Group Puts Market Neutral Fund into Gear

May 23, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - One Group Mutual Funds has put the One Group Market Neutral Mutual Fund into gear.
Reported by

According to a news release, the new offering’s market neutral strategy is designed to perform independently from the general domestic markets to help “neutralize” volatility.

Banc One Investment Advisors – One Group’s advisor – will apply proprietary quantitative analysis to rank 1,100 to 1,300 stocks using both valuation and fundamental criteria. The 200 to 250 most attractive stocks are held in a long position and the 200 to 250 least attractive stocks are sold short, according to the news release.   The fund intends to maintain approximately equal value exposure in its long and short positions to offset the effects from stock market movements or sector swings.

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANSPONSOR newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan benefits news.

In general, the fund will:

  • be sector neutral
  • give equal consideration to both value and growth factors
  • invest in small-, mid- and large-cap stocks
  • offer A, B, C or I shares
  • have a $10,000 minimum investment

One Group Mutual Funds has more than $97.5 billion in assets as of March 31, 2003 and is the mutual fund family of the Bank One Corporation. More information is available at  http://www.onegroup.com/ .

Investing May 22, 2003

Fixed Income Arbitrage Leads Q1 2003 Hedge Fund Returns

May 22, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Pulling back from their fourth-quarter 2002 behavior, investors poured nearly $7 billion in net assets into hedge funds, according to Tremont's TASS Research.
Reported by

Leaders during the quarter, which added $6.98 billion in net assets, were Fixed Income Arbitrage with $3.37 billion in assets followed by Managed Futures and Global Macro with net flows of $2.1 billion and $1.73 billion, respectively. According to TASS Research, Fixed Income Arbitrage also benefited from the launch of several high profile funds.   Many of the new funds are based in Europe where conditions are conducive for trading in an array of global bond and futures markets

On the other side of the fence were three categories still reflecting outflows: Event Driven, losing a net $2.09 billion and Long/Short Equity with a $721 million loss.   The Dedicated Short Bias category also recorded a net loss of $58 million.

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANSPONSOR NEWSDash daily newsletter.

In the fourth quarter of 2002, hedge funds posted a loss in net assets of $696 million.   For 2002, the industry showed a net gain of $16.28 billion.

The TASS Research quarterly analysis of hedge fund flows is based on an analysis of approximately $350 billion in hedge fund assets.   The TASS Asset Flows Report for the first quarter is available through  www.hedgeworld.com .

«