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alternativeedge snapshot
A Review of
Alex Skorniakov
alex.skorniakov@newedge.com
newedge.com
The Dataset
For individual hedge fund data, we used our wider database that includes both live and dead
funds. We used strategy filters to identify the Equity Long/Short and Market Neutral funds,
and removed all the multiple currency and leverage classes to get a population of over 2500
unique equity strategies. This was then further screened so that only strategies that have had
USD50mio at one point during its life remained. In order to avoid backfill bias, we have endeavoured to exclude any returns data prior to inclusion date in the database.
Exhibit 1
Equity Hedge Fund Performance (Last 5 Years)
70%
60%
Cumulative Returns
Alex Hill
alex.hill@newedge.com
In 2014 Equity Long/Short strategies completed their third consecutive year at an annual
high water mark, having returned +33.1% since the beginning of 2012, although 2014 saw a
plateau in performance. In this paper we look at the recent performance of Long/Short and
Market Neutral equities strategies using hedge fund data from the Newedge Research Database (NERD). We show the performance at overall strategy, sector, and geography levels,
as well as look at the dispersion of individual manager returns. Additionally, we analyse the
performance of six long/short factor indices, and provide an analysis of the stock loan environment for European equities in 2014.
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
-20%
40%
12-Month Rolling Returns
James Skeggs
james.skeggs@newedge.com
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
Dec-09
Jun-10
Dec-10
Jun-11
Dec-11
Jun-12
Dec-12
Jun-13
Dec-13
Jun-14
Dec-14
The authors would like to thank our SG colleagues Andrew Lapthorne and Gael Kessler for their invaluable support and advice that helped to improve this paper.
Exhibit 3
Equity Hedge Fund Summary Statistics for 2014
MSCI AC World TR Index
Long / Short
Market Neutral
2014
Return
4.16%
2.80%
3.02%
2014
Volatility
8.79%
5.01%
1.12%
2014 Sharpe
Ratio (T-Bill)
0.47
0.55
2.65
2014 Max.
Drawdown
-4.00%
-2.01%
-0.35%
The lower panel of Exhibit 1 details the 12-month rolling returns for
the two peer groups, and shows the plateau of Long/Short performance during 2014. Gains of +3.97% in the first half of the year were
partially offset by losses of -1.12% in the second as the global equity
rally stumbled.
Exhibit 2
Equity Hedge Fund 12-Month Rolling Volatility
MSCI AC World TR Index
Long / Short
Market Neutral
10%
Exhibit 5
Long/Short Alpha and Beta Contribution by Year
5%
0%
Dec-09 Jun-10 Dec-10 Jun-11 Dec-11 Jun-12 Dec-12 Jun-13 Dec-13 Jun-14 Dec-14
40%
40%
30%
30%
20%
20%
10%
10%
0%
0%
-10%
-10%
-20%
-20%
-30%
-40%
-50%
Beta Contribution
Alpha Contribution
MSCI AC World TR Index
15%
20%
25%
-30%
-40%
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
-50%
Exhibit 4
Historical Ranking of 2014 Equity Hedge Fund Performance
Historical Year Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Total Return
Long / Short
31.1%
28.6%
18.1%
15.9%
13.9%
13.6%
13.4%
12.9%
12.5%
9.7%
7.4%
2.8%
-2.0%
-7.3%
-24.9%
Market Neutral
15.9%
8.8%
7.4%
7.2%
6.6%
6.5%
5.8%
5.2%
3.7%
3.5%
3.0%
3.0%
2.8%
2.0%
2.0%
Beta Contribution
Long / Short
Market Neutral
16.2%
2.2%
14.8%
1.7%
13.7%
1.3%
11.6%
1.3%
10.1%
1.1%
8.4%
0.7%
7.9%
0.5%
6.6%
0.4%
0.2%
5.5%
2.0%
0.1%
-4.1%
-0.2%
-7.3%
-0.4%
-8.3%
-0.6%
-9.2%
-1.5%
-21.5%
-3.3%
Alpha Contribution
Long / Short
Market Neutral
23.2%
19.2%
17.4%
8.4%
15.7%
6.4%
13.8%
6.1%
7.4%
6.0%
7.0%
5.1%
6.5%
4.4%
5.5%
3.7%
5.3%
3.5%
2.4%
3.5%
1.2%
3.4%
0.8%
3.3%
2.8%
-0.3%
-3.2%
2.5%
-3.4%
1.5%
Whilst the performance of the equity hedge fund peer groups above
may appear to be slightly underwhelming in 2014, it is important to note
that these are the average returns of over 800 funds. The fate of individual managers will have varied significantly from the average returns.
In Exhibit 6 we show these varying fortunes by demonstrating the
dispersion of the returns for the individual constituents of our Long/
Short and Market Neutral peer groups. Specifically we plot the average return (y axis), vs. the average volatility (x axis) for each decile of
managers (grouped by returns) in each peer group. The volatilities of
Long/Short managers were typically greater than those of their Market Neutral counterparts, and exhibited more variation with the decile
average volatilities ranging from 7.1% to 18.7% (vs. 3.5%-6.6% for
Market Neutral).
Exhibit 6
Return Dispersion by Equity Hedge Fund Strategy in 2014
40%
One outcome of this is that the alphas generated within these wider
peer groups tend to be unrelated from one manager to another. This
is shown in Exhibit 9, which details the 12-month rolling average correlation of individual manager alphas.
Exhibit 7
Equity Hedge Fund Return Dispersion by Year
Long / Short
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
30%
-20%
20%
-30%
10%
-40%
Market Neutral
0%
-10%
-20%
Long / Short
Market Neutral
-30%
0%
2%
4%
6%
16%
18%
20%
60%
Interquartile Range
Lower Quartlie
Upper Quartile
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
-20%
-30%
-40%
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Exhibit 8
12-Month Rolling Intra Peer Group Average Pairwise Correlation
0.50
0.45
12-Month Rolling Correlation
years. The average correlations for Long/Short are consistently higher than those in Market Neutral; however they are still low, averaging
just 0.32. The correlation in Long/Short has declined significantly in
the last two years and ends 2014 at 0.20.
0.40
Long / Short
Market Neutral
0.35
0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Exhibit 9
12-Month Rolling Correlation of Equity Hedge Fund Alphas
0.30
Long / Short
Market Neutral
0.20
0.15
The betas of the geographical peer groups to their relevant benchmarks do vary through time as shown in Exhibit 11, averaging
approximately 0.49 over the last 10 years. Notably, the European focused Long/Short funds generally exhibit lower levels of beta to the
relevant benchmark.
0.05
0.00
-0.05
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Returns by Geographical
Focus
For all of the Equity Long/Short managers we have further identified
the geographical focus of each fund and assigned a relevant long-only
benchmark (please see appendix 1 for further details).
The upper panel of Exhibit 10 shows a significant variation in returns of global equities with the North American benchmark rising by
+12.99%, whilst the European benchmark fell -7.22%. The remainder
of this table, and the lower panel of the chart, allows us to compare
the returns for the long-only benchmarks with the returns of our regional manager peer groups.
Exhibit 10
2014 Equity Long/Short Returns by Geographic Focus
Benchmark Peer Group
2014 Total 2014 Total
2014 2014 Sharpe 2014 Max.
Return
Return
Volatility Ratio (T-Bill) Drawdown
Asia
0.54%
2.72%
3.6%
0.742
-1.63%
Europe
-7.22%
2.48%
4.5%
0.544
-3.74%
Emerging Markets -2.19%
-2.47%
6.8%
-0.368
-6.29%
North America
12.99%
3.76%
6.5%
0.573
-2.87%
Global
4.16%
4.70%
5.2%
0.903
-1.72%
15%
Geographic Peer Group
Benchmark
2014 Return
10%
5%
0%
-5%
0.10
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
2005
Asia
Europe
Emerging
Markets
North America
Global
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Exhibit 12
12-Month Rolling Alphas to Geographical Benchmarks
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
-10%
Asia
Europe
Emerging Markets
North America
Global
0.9
0.25
Asia
Europe
Emerging Markets
North America
Global
-15%
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Source: SG CIB, BarclayHedge, Bloomberg
We have also identified, where one exists, a sector focus for the Long/
Short managers in our NERD database, and assigned the relevant
MSCI Sector benchmark. There were sufficient funds in the following
sectors to make an analysis possible: Energy, Natural Resources, Financials, Healthcare, and Technology.
Exhibit 13 details the average performance of the funds in each sector,
as well as the alpha and beta components for each sector. Healthcare
funds posted particularly strong returns with the average fund gaining
+24%, and the Financials sector also saw gains of almost 9%. The
Energy and Natural Resource sectors struggled as stocks fell following
the large decline in crude oil prices in 2014. Technology was a sector
of note, with hedge funds posting small losses whilst the benchmark
produced positive returns. The MarchApril returns in this sector were
particularly challenging as active managers and hedge funds rotated
out of both growth and momentum names.
Exhibit 13
2014 Equity Long/Short Sector Return & Alpha/Beta Contribution
30%
25%
Alpha / Beta Contribution
20%
30%
Alpha Contribution
Beta Contribution
Total Return
25%
20%
15%
10%
10%
5%
5%
0%
0%
-5%
-5%
-10%
-10%
-15%
Energy
Natural
Resources
Financials
Healthcare
Technology
Total Return
15%
-15%
ance sheet strength, low price volatility, and low betas, was the best
performing during the year followed by the Value style. Yield and Profitability also produced positive returns, whilst Growth and Momentum
styles struggled.
In fact one of the most significant changes during the year was the
shift in the correlations between the Growth, Value, and Momentum
styles, as is shown in Exhibit 15. The correlation between the Growth
and Momentum styles began the year strongly negative (-0.76), but
this shifted to strongly positive over the course of four months between March and June, reaching a peak of 0.8 in October (which was
higher than was reached in 2008 and 2009) and ending the year at
0.74. The exact opposite has occurred in the correlation between the
Growth and Value styles, which has fallen from approximately +0.5 to
-0.5 throughout the year.
As above for the Long/Short managers, we can also look at the factor performance across regions, as is shown in Exhibit 16. The Quality
style produced significant returns in all regions, led by the US and
Japan. The exception to this was Emerging Markets, which posted
negative returns in Quality but saw good returns in Profitability and
Growth. For the second year in a row, every factor combination was
positive when applied to UK stocks, particularly Growth and Value.
The other individual combination of note was Yield in Europe.
Exhibit 14
2014 Global Long/short Factor Performance
20%
2014
Since 2000
15%
Annualised Return
10%
5%
-5%
Growth
Momentum Profitability
Quality
Value
Yield
Exhibit 15
12-Month Rolling Factor Correlations
1.00
0.80
12-Month Rolling Correlation
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
-0.20
-0.40
-0.60
-0.80
-1.00
2005 2006
Japan
-1.22%
4.00%
1.90%
16.30%
1.81%
-0.86%
UK
8.59%
1.27%
2.24%
11.96%
6.65%
4.82%
Emerging
US
Markets
-5.42% 6.15%
-1.89% -0.76%
-2.37% 10.33%
19.15% -1.88%
0.55% 1.14%
5.76% 0.00%
European Borrow
Environment
In Exhibit 10 earlier we showed that Europe-focused Long/Short
managers had been able to produce positive returns despite a falling
market. With the short side clearly being important, we felt it would
be interesting to look at how the borrow environment has evolved for
European stocks.
Exhibit 17 details the average stock loan fee for the STOXX Europe
600 index constituents, broken down by market capitalisation. Average borrow rates for Large and Mid-cap stocks remained fairly
constant throughout the year, averaging 26bps and 47bps respectively, and both of these are at the lowest rates seen over the last five
years. Small cap stocks also ended the year with borrow rates at fiveyear lows of 71bps due to the very low levels of corporate activity at
the end of the year. This chart does show that this wasnt a steady
decline however, increasing by 30% from 90bps to 116bps during
March to May as a number of Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese banks
launched rights issues ahead of the ECB Asset Quality Review. The
large spike up to 248bps in June was caused by a significant rights
issue of just one stock, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A.
Exhibit 17
STOXX Europe 600 Stock Loan Fee per Market Capitalisation
3.0%
2.5%
Small Cap
Mid Cap
Large Cap
2.0%
1.5%
1.0%
0.5%
0.0%
Dec-10 Jun-11 Dec-11 Jun-12 Dec-12 Jun-13 Dec-13 Jun-14 Dec-14
Exhibit 18
2014 STOXX Europe 600 Distribution of Stock Loan Fees By
Sector
100%
100
80%
60%
50
40%
20%
0%
Europe
-0.64%
-4.39%
4.06%
12.19%
1.23%
9.72%
0
Autos
Banks
Basic Res
Chems
Con&Mat
Fin.Svces
Food&Bev
H.Care
Ind.G&S
Insur
Media
Oil & Gas
P&HhGds
Real Est
Retail
Tech
Telecom
Travel
Utils
Growth
Momentum
Profitability
Quality
Value
Yield
World
-2.33%
-1.64%
1.52%
17.30%
5.46%
2.34%
have borrow costs greater than 300bps, a number of which have been
among the top specials in Europe in recent years.
Exhibit 16
2014 Factor Returns by Geographical Focus
150 - 300
75 - 150
50 - 75
< 50 bps
Conclusions
In this paper we analysed recent equity Long/Short and Market
Neutral performance, and showed that they have completed a third
consecutive year at a new annual high water mark. Despite outperforming the long-only benchmark in risk-adjusted returns, low
volatilities resulted in 2014 being a year that may be recognised as
slightly underwhelming for Long/Short funds.
We showed that the fate of individual managers however varied significantly from the average returns but highlighted that the dispersion
of returns, which may at first have seemed large, was actually at its
lowest level since 2007. We also showed the average correlation
within the Market Neutral peer group to be almost indistinguishable
from zero, and that correlation between Long/Short managers has
declined significantly in the last two years.
We identified the various geographical focuses of the managers in our
database, and showed European-focused managers significantly outperformed the European indices, producing positive returns whilst the
benchmark fell. US Long/Short managers, on the other, hand trailed
the benchmark, only capturing 30% of the market returns.
We also looked at the various sector specialists in our database and
showed that Healthcare funds led the way, gaining +24% on average. Technology was also a sector of note, with hedge funds posting
small losses whilst the benchmark produced positive returns. The
MarchApril returns in this sector were particularly challenging as
active managers and hedge funds rotated out of both growth and
momentum names.
In fact one of the most significant changes during the year was the
shift in the correlations between the Growth, Value, and Momentum
Societe Generale Prime Services
styles, as we demonstrated using a series of long/short factor models. The correlation between the Growth and Momentum styles began
the year strongly negative but shifted to strongly positive over the
course of four months between March and June. The exact opposite
has occurred in the correlation between the Growth and Value styles,
which has fallen from approximately +0.5 to -0.5 throughout the year.
We highlighted the strength of returns of the Quality factor in almost
all regions, and showed that for the second year in a row, every factor combination was positive when applied to UK stocks, particularly
the Growth and Value factors. European Yield and Emerging Markets
Profitability posted significant positive returns.
Finally we looked at how the European stock loan environment
evolved and showed that the borrow rates for Large and Mid-cap
companies remained fairly constant throughout the year. The increase
in borrow rates for small-cap companies observed during the first half
of the year was led by various rights issues by some European Banks,
and then this subsequently declined to very low levels towards the
end of the year.
Appendix 1
Benchmarks Used
Geographical
Peer groups
Asia
Europe
Emerging Markets
North America
Global
Index
MSCI Daily TR Net AC Asia USD Index
MSCI AC Daily TR Net Europe USD Index
MSCI Daily TR Net Emerging Markets USD Index
S&P 500 Net TR Index
MSCI AC World Daily TR Net USD Index
Sector
Peer groups
Energy
Natural Resources
Financials
Healthcare
Technology
Index
MSCI World Energy Sector Net TR USD Index
S&P Global Natural Resources Net TR Index
MSCI AC World Daily TR Net Diversified Financials
USD Index
MSCI AC World Daily TR Net Health Care USD Index
MSCI AC World Daily TR Net Information Technology
USD Index
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