…Council of Institutional Investors, a nonprofit association of pension funds, endowments, employee benefit funds, and foundations with collective assets of over $3 trillion. The CII is an umbrella group that represents the institutions who manage the retirement and benefit funds of public and corporate employees all over America – from bricklayers to Teamsters to teachers to employees of Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL), The Gap Inc. (NYSE:GPS) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ).
Jitters fail to spook solid first quarter (Financial News)
Hedge funds posted a solid start to the year as accommodating monetary policy from central banks and governments heralded a widespread move into risk assets and equity markets rallied. Most of the 18 strategy and five regional indices published by data provider Hedge Fund Research posted positive gains for the quarter, with the exception of short-biased funds, indices focused on energy strategies and those investing in Russia/Eastern Europe. The average hedge fund gained 3.9% in the quarter, with equity strategies leading the way.
The Coca-Cola Company (KO): 1 of Buffett’s Biggest Investments Might Be His Worst (Insider Monkey)
RBS Loses Appeal by U.S. Hedge Fund Highland (Fox Business)
Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (LON:RBS) has lost a high-profile legal dispute against U.S. hedge fund Highland, the Financial Times in London reported Saturday, citing a judge in the case. Three senior judges found that an earlier ruling in favor of RBS had been obtained by the fraud of one of its bankers who had given dishonest evidence in court.
ETF Strategy That Outperforms Hedge Funds (Seeking Alpha)
Firms like UBS AG (USA) (NYSE:UBS), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and hedge fund giant AQR have opened numerous mutual funds offering small clients access to esoteric strategies like ‘tactical macro’ or ‘ statistical arbitrage’ and derivatives trading. The allure of the old idea – earning outsized returns like those of George Soros, John Paulson or Steve Cohen – may explain the appeal of these new mutual funds to retail investors. Or investors may be intrigued by the possibility of better diversification. But have these new alternative mutual funds lived up to the old hedge fund ideals of delivering alpha? And what is the ideal by which to measure their effectiveness compared to the conventional equity income investment style?
Ex-Soros Adviser Says BOJ’s Massive Easing to Backfire (Bloomberg)
The Bank of Japan (8301)’s “huge bet” by boosting quantitative easing won’t turn the economy around and is instead sending the nation toward default, said Takeshi Fujimaki, former adviser to billionaire investor George Soros. The BOJ said April 4 it will double monthly debt purchases to 7.5 trillion yen ($76 billion). That’s about 70 percent of planned bond issuance from the world’s most heavily indebted government. Governor Haruhiko Kuroda set a two-year horizon for achieving the 2 percent annual inflation target adopted in January at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s urging and said the monetary base will grow to 270 trillion yen by the end of 2014.
