Brief :Millennium Management will trial a hybrid working arrangement as it seeks to find a best-of-both-worlds approach for staff in the wake of the pandemic. Employees at Izzy Englander’s hedge fund firm will be required to come into the office three days a week and can work the remainder from home, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The approach will start on Sept. 7 and apply to most of the firm’s offices globally, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Firms around the world are grappling with whether to bring all staff back to their offices full time after the global spread of the deadly coronavirus showed that many could effectively do their jobs from home. Millennium plans to monitor the viability of its plan and will settle on a longer-term solution at a later stage, the person said. Millennium, which manages more than $51 billion and employs more than 3,500 people globally, had sent all but a few key people home to work last year as the pandemic spread around the world.
Brief: The World Economic Forum has cancelled its annual meeting - the blue riband event for the global elite to discuss the world's problems - due to be held in Singapore later this year, the organisers said on Monday. The COVID-19 pandemic meant it was not possible to hold such a large event as planned on Aug. 17-20, they said. "Regretfully, the tragic circumstances unfolding across geographies, an uncertain travel outlook, differing speeds of vaccination roll out and the uncertainty around new variants combine to make it impossible to realise a global meeting with business, government and civil society leaders from all over the world at the scale which was planned," the WEF said in a statement. The event, which attracts VIPs from the worlds of politics and business, has been held since 1971. It was originally shifted from the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos last December due to concerns about safeguarding the health of participants. Singapore has in recent days imposed some of the tightest restrictions since it exited a lockdown last year to combat a spike in local COVID-19 infections.
Brief: Using data from HFR and Eurekahedge, AlternativeSoft selected five funds with the highest 2020 returns to see if simple momentum has generated strong returns in 2021. The five funds generated returns between 149 per cent and 300 per cent in 2020, with the best performing, SYWLP, returning 300.45 per cent was SYWLP. However, when AlternativeSoft analysed the performance of the same funds in the first quarter of 2021, it found that their momentum were not carried over. SYWLP, for example, has a negative return of 28.47 per cent so far this year, while overall, the top five funds in 2020 generated an average return of 203.81 per cent, the same five funds in Q1 of 2021 generated an average return of 13.26 per cent. When comparing the 2021 top-ranked funds, they all ranked very low in terms of returns in 2020. For example, the best performing fund in Q1-2021, Loyola Capital Fund Ltd was ranked 82nd in 2020.
Brief: A robust short base has formed in the Treasury market, expecting an economic recovery, and it’s willing to overlook data points that contradict its preferred narrative. “Investors seem to take the view that what matters is that the U.S. economy is recovering, rather than worry too much about the precise strength of the recovery at any particular moment in time,” Bank of America strategist Ralf Preusser said in a note. Positioning has become a “sea of uncertainty,” he said. Response to the weak U.S. employment report for April, released May 7, was a case in point. Bank of America’s FX and Rates Sentiment Survey for May -- which polls 70-80 institutional investors who combined manage more than $1 trillion -- found that duration underweights increased over the month. Similarly, in JPMorgan’s Treasury client survey, short positioning is most stretched since 2017.
Brief: BlackRock Inc. will ask U.S. employees to return to offices in September, when it will begin a trial period allowing some remote work each week. The world’s largest asset manager will allow up to two days a week of remote work on average for U.S. staff, a spokesman for New York-based BlackRock said Friday. BlackRock will ask employees to start “re-acclimating” to office work periodically in July and August if they feel comfortable doing so, the spokesman said. Staff will be divided into groups, with office access on a two-week rotational basis during those months. Employees can continue working from home full-time through June 30. The company will use its findings from the trial period that begins in September to decide how to shape its staffing plans for next year. Money managers are experimenting with expanding remote-work arrangements as vaccination rates climb. Vanguard Group is adopting a hybrid work model for the majority of its staff. Hedge funds Two Sigma Investments and Bridgewater Associates are also planning to allow employees to continue to work remotely at least part-time.