Merger Arbitrage strategies which employ an investment process primarily focused on opportunities in equity and equity related instruments of companies which are currently engaged in a corporate transaction. Merger Arbitrage involves primarily announced transactions, typically with limited or no exposure to situations which pre-, post-date or situations in which no formal announcement is expected to occur. Opportunities are frequently presented in cross border, collared and international transactions which incorporate multiple geographic regulatory institutions, with typically involve minimal exposure to corporate credits. Merger arbitrage strategies typically have over 75% of positions in announced transactions over a given market cycle. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
HFRI-I Indices - Index Descriptions
HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices
Event-Driven: Multi-Strategy Managers maintain positions in companies currently or prospectively involved in corporate transactions of a wide variety including but not limited to mergers, restructurings, financial distress, tender offers, shareholder buybacks, debt exchanges, security issuance or other capital structure adjustments. Security types can range from most senior in the capital structure to most junior or subordinated, and frequently involve additional derivative securities. Event Driven exposure includes a combination of sensitivities to equity markets, credit markets and idiosyncratic, company specific developments. Investment theses are typically predicated on fundamental characteristics (as opposed to quantitative), with the realization of the thesis predicated on a specific development exogenous to the existing capital structure. ED Multi-Strategy managers do not maintain more than 50% exposure in any one Event-Driven sub-strategy. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Equity Market Neutral strategies employ sophisticated quantitative techniques of analyzing price data to ascertain information about future price movement and relationships between securities, select securities for purchase and sale. These can include both Factor-based and Statistical Arbitrage/Trading strategies. Factor-based investment strategies include strategies in which the investment thesis is predicated on the systematic analysis of common relationships between securities. In many but not all cases, portfolios are constructed to be neutral to one or multiple variables, such as broader equity markets in dollar or beta terms, and leverage is frequently employed to enhance the return profile of the positions identified. Statistical Arbitrage/Trading strategies consist of strategies in which the investment thesis is predicated on exploiting pricing anomalies which may occur as a function of expected mean reversion inherent in security prices; high frequency techniques may be employed and trading strategies may also be employed on the basis on technical analysis or opportunistically to exploit new information the investment manager believes has not been fully, completely or accurately discounted into current security prices. Equity Market Neutral Strategies typically maintain characteristic net equity market exposure no greater than 10% long or short. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Fundamental Growth strategies employ analytical techniques in which the investment thesis is predicated on assessment of the valuation characteristics on the underlying companies which are expected to have prospects for earnings growth and capital appreciation exceeding those of the broader equity market. Investment theses are focused on characteristics of the firm's financial statements in both an absolute sense and relative to other similar securities and more broadly, market indicators. Strategies employ investment processes designed to identify attractive opportunities in securities of companies which are experiencing or expected to experience abnormally high levels of growth compared with relevant benchmarks growth in earnings, profitability, sales or market share. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Fundamental Value strategies which employ investment processes designed to identify attractive opportunities in securities of companies which trade a valuation metrics by which the manager determines them to be inexpensive and undervalued when compared with relevant benchmarks. Investment theses are focused on characteristics of the firm's financial statements in both an absolute sense and relative to other similar securities and more broadly, market indicators. Relative to Fundamental Growth strategies, in which earnings growth and capital appreciation is expected as a function of expanding market share & revenue increases, Fundamental Value strategies typically focus on equities which currently generate high cash flow, but trade at discounted valuation multiples, possibly as a result of limited anticipated growth prospects or generally out of favor conditions, which may be specific to sector or specific holding. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Equity Hedge: Multi-Strategy Investment Managers maintain positions both long and short in primarily equity and equity derivative securities. A wide variety of investment processes can be employed to arrive at an investment decision, including both quantitative and fundamental techniques; strategies can be broadly diversified or narrowly focused on specific sectors and can range broadly in terms of levels of net exposure, leverage employed, holding period, concentrations of market capitalizations and valuation ranges of typical portfolios. EH Multi-Strategy managers typically do not maintain more than 50% exposure in any one Equity Hedge sub-strategy. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Equity Hedge Index is designed to be representative of the composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investments employing Equity Hedge strategies. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Event Driven Index is designed to be representative of the composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investments employing Event Driven strategies. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Index is designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. It is comprised of all eligible alternative investment strategies; including, but not limited to equity hedge, event driven, macro, and relative value arbitrage. The underlying constituents are equally weighted.
The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Macro Index is designed to be representative of the composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investments employing Macro strategies. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Macro: Multi-Strategy Strategies which employ components of both Discretionary and Systematic Macro strategies, but neither exclusively both. Strategies frequently contain proprietary trading influences, and in some cases contain distinct, identifiable sub-strategies, such as equity hedge or equity market neutral, or in some cases a number of sub-strategies are blended together without the capacity for portfolio level disaggregation. Strategies employ an investment process is predicated on a systematic, quantitative evaluation of macroeconomic variables in which the portfolio positioning is predicated on convergence of differentials between markets, not necessarily highly correlated with each other, but currently diverging from their historical levels of correlation. Strategies focus on fundamental relationships across geographic areas of focus both inter and intra-asset classes, and typical holding periods are longer than trend following or discretionary strategies. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Systematic: Diversified strategies have investment processes typically as function of mathematical, algorithmic and technical models, with little or no influence of individuals over the portfolio positioning. Strategies which employ an investment process designed to identify opportunities in markets exhibiting trending or momentum characteristics across individual instruments or asset classes. Strategies typically employ quantitative process which focus on statistically robust or technical patterns in the return series of the asset, and typically focus on highly liquid instruments and maintain shorter holding periods than either discretionary or mean reverting strategies. Although some strategies seek to employ counter trend models, strategies benefit most from an environment characterized by persistent, discernable trending behavior. Systematic: Diversified strategies typically would expect to have no greater than 35% of portfolio in either dedicated currency or commodity exposures over a given market cycle. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Relative Value Index is designed to be representative of the composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investments employing Relative Value strategies. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Fixed Income: Corporate includes strategies in which the investment thesis is predicated on realization of a spread between related instruments in which one or multiple components of the spread is a corporate fixed income instrument. Strategies employ an investment process designed to isolate attractive opportunities between a variety of fixed income instruments, typically realizing an attractive spread between multiple corporate bonds or between a corporate and risk free government bond. Fixed Income: Corporate strategies differ from Event Driven: Credit Arbitrage in that the former more typically involve more general market hedges which may vary in the degree to which they limit fixed income market exposure, while the later typically involve arbitrage positions with little or no net credit market exposure, but are predicated on specific, anticipated idiosyncratic developments. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Fixed Income - Sovereign includes strategies in which the investment thesis is predicated on realization of a spread between related instruments in which one or multiple components of the spread is a sovereign fixed income instrument. Strategies employ an investment process designed to isolate attractive opportunities between a variety of fixed income instruments, typically realizing an attractive spread between multiple sovereign bonds or between a corporate and risk free government bond. Fixed Income Sovereign typically employ multiple investment processes including both quantitative and fundamental discretionary approaches and relative to other Relative Value Arbitrage sub-strategies, these have the most significant top-down macro influences, relative to the more idiosyncratic fundamental approaches employed. RV: Fixed Income: Sovereign funds would typically have a minimum of 50% exposure to global sovereign fixed income markets, but characteristically maintain lower net exposure than similar strategies in Macro: Multi-Strategy sub-strategy. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
Relative Value Multi-Strategies employ an investment thesis is predicated on realization of a spread between related yield instruments in which one or multiple components of the spread contains a fixed income, derivative, equity, real estate, MLP or combination of these or other instruments. Strategies are typically quantitatively driven to measure the existing relationship between instruments and, in some cases, identify attractive positions in which the risk adjusted spread between these instruments represents an attractive opportunity for the investment manager. In many cases these strategies may exist as distinct strategies across which a vehicle which allocates directly, or may exist as related strategies over which a single individual or decision making process manages. Multi-strategy is not intended to provide broadest-based mass market investors appeal, but are most frequently distinguished from others arbitrage strategies in that they expect to maintain >30% of portfolio exposure in 2 or more strategies meaningfully distinct from each other that are expected to respond to diverse market influences. The HFRI-I Liquid Alternative UCITS Indices are designed to be representative of the overall composition of the UCITS-compliant alternative investment strategy universe. The underlying constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.