Hedge fund industry shrinks in first quarter-HFR data

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Hedge fund industry shrinks in first quarter-HFR data
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The hedge fund industry shrank in the first quarter, meaning fewer choices of funds for investors and those funds overseeing slightly less money, data released on Thursday showed.

Morgan Stanley global commodities co-head Peter Sherk to leave firm: memo
(Reuters) – Morgan Stanley global commodities group co-head Peter Sherk is leaving the firm, the bank said Thursday in a memo.

In or out of index, China not a bet worth taking: James Saft
(Reuters) – Chinese domestic equities are best avoided, and the reasons go beyond those cited by MSCI in delaying their inclusion in benchmark indices.

Brexit to hurt large U.S. banks’ 2016 earnings by 1-6 percent: KBW
(Reuters) – Earnings of large U.S. banks would be hit by 1-6 percent this year if Britons vote in favor of leaving the European Union next week, according to brokerage Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW).

Pimco planning to cut nearly 3 percent of global workforce: source
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pacific Investment Management Co plans to cut nearly three percent of its workforce as assets under management have fallen since the September 2014 departure of co-founder Bill…

Guess who’s shopping at dollar stores? Well-to-do millennials
(Reuters) – Victoria Marin, a 35-year old author and educator, used to spend hundreds of dollars at large party-goods retailers on supplies that ended up in the trash can.

Is the U.S. fight over fiduciary rule really about the little guy?
CHICAGO, June 16 (Reuters) – – (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)

CEO injects philanthropy into family’s culture of money
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Julie Smolyansky has spent more than a decade as chief executive officer of her family’s successful business, but her path to the corner office was unplanned.

DoubleLine’s Gundlach: ‘Rate-hike cycle has left the building’
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer at DoubleLine Capital, said on Wednesday that Federal Reserve officials are no longer trying to prepare the markets for rate hikes…

Vanguard CEO says Wall Street offering too many ETFs
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Too many exchange-traded funds are being offered without enough quality control and could harm investors, fund manager Vanguard Group’s chief executive said on Wednesday.

Father knows best: Valuable money advice from dad
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Every Father’s Day, we honor the fathers who helped and guided us. Learning to handle money wisely is sometimes the greatest gift they give us along the way.

BlackRock sees wave of M&A in asset management industry: CEO
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The asset management sector “needs consolidation” and has the potential for “quite a bit” of merger and acquisition activity, BlackRock Inc Chief Executive Officer Laurence Fink…

Markets have priced in ‘half’ the move of Brexit vote, BlackRock says
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global markets have priced in “half the move” should British voters ultimately decide to approve a June 23 referendum and leave the European Union, said Nigel Bolton, co-head of…

BlackRock debuts U.S. ETF for China-listed stock after MSCI snub
(Reuters) – BlackRock Inc is introducing its first U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund providing access to mainland Chinese markets, the world’s largest asset manager said on Wednesday.

SkyBridge cuts investments in top hedge funds in first quarter
NEW YORK (Reuters) – SkyBridge Capital, a big investor in hedge funds, cut its stakes in portfolios managed by Daniel Loeb and John Paulson and exited funds of other prominent investors in the first…

U.S. fund managers’ big new bet – going small
NEW YORK (Reuters) – As the S&P 500 index of large companies flirts with a record high, many U.S. fund managers are opting to go small instead, betting that small caps have more potential for…

Guilty plea seen for Wall Street scion Caspersen in fraud case
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street executive Andrew Caspersen will likely plead guilty next month to criminal charges over an alleged $150 million fraud scheme, after compulsive gambling drove him to…

DoubleLine’s Gundlach says ‘central banks are losing control’
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive officer at DoubleLine Capital, said on Tuesday that investors are dropping risky assets and turning to safer securities including Treasuries…

Bank of America executive says growth of sales force will continue
(Reuters) – Bank of America will continue to increase the number of salespeople as it scales back on support staff, a senior executive said on Tuesday.

BlackRock’s Rieder buying U.S. Treasuries despite rate risks
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Top BlackRock Inc investor Rick Rieder said on Tuesday he has been building up a stake in U.S. government debt even with the potential of an interest rate hike as early as July.

Merging his family lineages, Jordan Roth makes his own way
NEW YORK (Reuters) – All children may be a reflection of their parents, but Jordan Roth really took that idea to heart.

Investors underestimate Fed hike, rising inflation risk: Templeton’s Hasenstab
CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. Treasuries are not as safe as investors using the debt as a safe-haven investment assume, investor Michael Hasenstab said on Monday, as full employment and rising inflation…

Merrill Lynch’s Italy chief plays down talk of UniCredit job-sources
MILAN (Reuters) – The head of Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Italy, tipped as a leading candidate to become chief executive at UniCredit, told an internal meeting on Monday he is happy with his…

Calpers says fiscal year return rate ‘likely to be flat’
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California Public Employees’ Retirement System Chief Investment Officer Ted Eliopoulos said on Monday the fund’s rate of return for the 12 months ending June 30 is “likely…

Prompting gasps, judge spares NY hedge fund executive prison for fraud
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York hedge fund manager who at age 28 lost nearly all $57 million he oversaw in less than three weeks was spared prison on Monday, as the judge recognized how quickly and…

Public pension funds seek infrastructure as market heats up
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The California Public Employees’ Retirement System recently bought a stake in a private Indiana toll road with a troubled history, one sign of how popular infrastructure…

Schroders ex-trader gets 2 years’ jail for insider trading
(Reuters) – Damian Clarke, a former equities trader at Schroders Investment Management, has been sentenced to two years imprisonment for insider trading, Britain’s financial watchdog said.

U.S. money funds pare UK exposure before Brexit vote: J.P. Morgan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. money market mutual funds have reduced their exposure to short-term British bank debt ahead of the June 23 referendum on whether Britain would stay in the European Union,…

Financial boardrooms 30 years away from 30 percent female representation: report
LONDON (Reuters) – It will take 30 years at the current pace of change for women to attain just 30 percent of the seats on executive committees in the financial services industry globally, an Oliver…

Junk-bond funds had inflows for first time in seven weeks as rate fears fade: EPFR
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Funds invested in high-yield U.S. corporate bonds attracted $1.5 billion in fresh capital in the week to June 8, the first such inflow in seven weeks, according to data provider…

Fight over U.S. retirement investment advice rule moves to courts
(Reuters) – The fight over a new federal regulation on advice on investing for retirement is moving from Capitol Hill to the U.S. court system, as the number of lawsuits attempting to stop the rule…

SWF acquisitions rise 62 percent, highest level since 2008
LONDON (Reuters) – The value of acquisitions involving sovereign wealth funds has risen 62 percent to $28.6 billion in the year to date, the highest level since 2008, Thomson Reuters data showed on…

Vanguard Group employee dividend rises 12 percent: newsletter
BOSTON (Reuters) – Top mutual fund provider Vanguard Group raised the value of a profit-sharing dividend paid to employees by 12 percent for 2015 as investors poured in assets, the editor of a…

Strong inflows into U.S. bond, emerging-market funds as rate fears ebb
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors pumped the most funds into U.S.-based emerging-market stock funds since March in the latest week, Lipper data released on Thursday showed, as the U.S. Federal Reserve…

Rangebound crude shrank gains for oil-focused hedge funds in May
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The rangebound market for crude oil in May, with prices mostly stuck within a few dollars below $50 a barrel, limited gains for three well-known hedge funds in oil, which…

Institutional asset managers suffer net outflows of $95.4 billion in first quarter
LONDON (Reuters) – Institutional asset managers worldwide suffered net outflows of $95.4 billion in the first quarter of 2016, data from research provider eVestment showed on Thursday, with equity…

Fund firms need talent shake-up in order to tap millennials
BERLIN (Reuters) – Asset managers trying to sell investment products to tech-savvy millennials need to hire younger staff who are more in tune with new ways of investing, leading industry figures say.

Column: Push to expand Social Security gains momentum
CHICAGO (Reuters) – A coalition of progressive politicians, policy experts and grassroots advocates started a campaign three years ago facing very long odds. They proposed expanding Social Security…

Life lessons from the financier known as ‘Chuck’
NEW YORK (Reuters) – In the financial world, most leaders are not instantly recognizable by their first names.

U.S. equities, high-yield European bonds attractive: UBS wealth arm
TOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. equities are an attractive investment as economic momentum is picking up and some bearish factors such as a strong dollar and low oil prices are diminishing, a top fund manager…

Barclays offers internships to those returning from career breaks
(Reuters) – Barclays Plc said on Wednesday it was launching an internship program in New York targeting people who had taken a career break from the finance industry, the latest move by a big bank to…

Investors pull most money of 2016 from U.S. large cap funds: ICI
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors ignored equity market gains and pulled the most money this year from U.S. mutual funds holding large-cap domestic stocks, Investment Company Institute data for the…

Morgan Stanley pays $1 million SEC fine over hacked customer data
(Reuters) – Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $1 million fine to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that security shortfalls enabled a former employee to transfer data regarding…

SEC bars electronic company officials in accounting fraud
(Reuters) – Two former officials of IEC Electronics Corp improperly overstated its profits in financial statements by inflating inventory to meet targets, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission…

Massachusetts pension fund hires hedge funds Contrarian, IPM
BOSTON (Reuters) – For the second time this year, the Massachusetts state pension fund on Wednesday decided to hire hedge funds, adding Contrarian Capital and IPM Informed Portfolio Management to its…

Oppenheimer to pay nearly $3 million for improper ETF sales: regulator
(Reuters) – Oppenheimer & Co agreed to pay nearly $3 million in fines and restitution to settle U.S. regulatory charges that it improperly sold risky exchange-traded funds to risk-averse elderly…

Big foreign banks in U.S. get extension for ‘living will’ plans
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Four big foreign banks with large American operations are being given an extra year to detail plans on how they would sell or liquidate the assets of their U.S. subsidiaries if…

‘I’m done’: U.S. wealth managers may call it quits over regulatory load
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some U.S. financial advisers are so fed up with regulatory red tape, they may opt for early retirement, the head of Boston Consulting Group’s wealth management group said Tuesday.

U.S. investors skeptical about China’s move to widen markets
NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) – U.S. asset managers and hedge funds are wary about pouring more money into China until the government addresses its stock market crash last year and wild swings in the…

Reading into the millennial book-buying boom
NEW YORK (Reuters) – (The author is a Reuters contributor. The opinions expressed are her own.)

Canada sustainable fund manager bets heavily on alternative fuel cars
TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian portfolio manager Martin Grosskopf is betting heavily on alternative fuel vehicles overtaking traditional cars as a pillar of the no-fossil-fuels allocation strategy of…

Exclusive: Pine River to shutter Fixed Income Fund, spin out China fund
BOSTON (Reuters) – Hedge fund Pine River Capital Management is closing its Pine River Fixed Income fund and returning roughly $1.6 billion in assets to investors just two months after the firm said…

Q&A: Why Mark Cuban values time over money
NEW YORK (Reuters) – After working his way up from selling garbage bags door-to-door as a teen in Pittsburgh, Mark Cuban, 57, is now climbing the ranks of the wealthiest Americans.

After grim payrolls, focus turns to economy
NEW YORK (Reuters) – With a June Federal Reserve interest rate hike likely off the table following Friday’s dismal jobs data, U.S. equity investors may shift their focus again to whether the economy…

Argentina mutual funds could see ‘explosive’ growth
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Mutual funds, whose assets comprise the largest share of investment vehicles in Argentina, will expand “explosively” once regulatory changes are put in place by the…

DoubleLine’s Gundlach calls May employment report ‘real body blow’
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, called the May employment report on Friday a “real body blow” and said it means an interest rate increase later this…

Market ignoring U.S. election ‘instability,’ Federated’s Orlando says
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. presidential election will spark heightened stock market volatility in the second half of the year, said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors,…

U.S. prosecutors to refund hedge fund insider trading settlement
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors have agreed to a rare settlement refund of $6 million to hedge fund Diamondback Capital Management LLC after a ruling by a 2014 federal appeals court made…

Tiger Global climbs in May, other funds post gains as well
BOSTON (Reuters) – Investment firm Tiger Global, known for making big bets on technology companies, told clients on Thursday that its hedge fund climbed 2.3 percent last month, helping shrink its…

Mutual funds and ETF flows send market conflicting signals
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors in U.S.-based exchange-traded funds charged back into the markets in force over the last week, Lipper data for the weekly period ended Wednesday showed, delivering…

U.S. fund sues Peru in land bond dispute
LIMA (Reuters) – Gramercy Funds Management LLC sued Peru for $1.6 billion in a dispute over the country’s 40-year-old land-reform bonds on Thursday, three days before a presidential election.

Lenders to U.S. oil and gas companies seek liquidity floors
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Banks are increasingly requiring U.S. oil and gas companies to maintain minimum levels of liquidity, an unusual step that could help reduce the risk of being exposed to companies…

U.S. charges Harvard grad over alleged Ponzi-like currency scam
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Harvard University graduate has been criminally charged with fraudulently causing almost $20 million of losses for clients after falsely touting her currency trading prowess…

Bayer secures loan facility to fund Monsanto bid: report
(Reuters) – German drugs and crop chemicals group Bayer AG, which has made a $62 billion bid for U.S. seeds company Monsanto Co, has secured a 60 billion euros ($67 billion) loan facility that can be…

FDIC, banks in $190 million settlement over risky Countrywide debt
(Reuters) – Eight financial services firms have paid the FDIC $190 million to settle claims they misled five U.S. banks into buying risky mortgage securities from the former Countrywide Financial…

U.S. SEC charges couple with fraud in Chinese investor visa scheme
(Reuters) – A California couple raised $27 million from at least 50 Chinese investors seeking U.S. immigration visas but misused two-thirds of the money, instead of building a cancer treatment center…

Investors pull $1 billion from Pimco Total Return Fund in May
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors pulled approximately $1 billion from the Pimco Total Return Fund, one of the world’s largest bond funds, in May following cash withdrawals of the same amount the…

U.S. fund managers focus on niche retailers as consumer spending jumps
NEW YORK (Reuters) – In their great hunt for the consumer dollar, mutual fund managers are leaving the mall.

Groups file lawsuit challenging U.S. retirement advice rule
(Reuters) – The financial services industry, the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce and other Wall Street-affiliated groups have filed a legal challenge to the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rule on retirement…

Activist Barington lays out demands in fight with Chico’s
BOSTON (Reuters) – Activist investor Barington Capital turned up the heat on apparel chain Chico’s FAS on Thursday with specific demands to cut costs, boost revenue and buy back more shares one week…

Bill Gross says historic investment returns are impossible to repeat
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bond investor Bill Gross of Janus Capital Group Inc said on Thursday the historic returns that investors have reaped for over four decades are over, given the near end of falling…

Payday loans face new limits under proposal from U.S. consumer bureau
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. agency charged with protecting consumers from financial abuse unveiled a proposal on Thursday that would limit short-term borrowings known as “payday” loans, which can…

AIG must face Pimco lawsuit over financial crisis losses
(Reuters) – American International Group Inc failed to persuade a California judge to dismiss a lawsuit by Pacific Investment Management Co that accuses AIG of lying about its subprime mortgage…

Fugitive Connecticut fund manager charged in new U.S. indictment
(Reuters) – A Connecticut fund manager who fled the United States after being hit with criminal insider trading charges was indicted on Wednesday for engaging in a separate scheme to embezzle $54…

Mexico brokerages seek more time on tax probe request: document
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican brokerages are pushing back against a massive government data request that aims to uncover possible tax evasion, a document showed, after the “Panama Papers” cast a…

Ackman’s Pershing Square posts losses again in May
BOSTON (Reuters) – Billionaire investor William Ackman’s Pershing Square Holdings hedge fund posted losses in May, widening its year-to-date losses to 18.6 percent, an investor in the fund said, in…

SEC can pursue Lynn Tilton fraud case, U.S. appeals court rules
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A divided federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected New York financier Lynn Tilton’s constitutional challenge to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission case that accuses the…

Activists boost innovation as well as share prices: James Saft
(Reuters) – It looks as if hedge fund activists engineer not just a short-term pop in target firms’ stock prices but also long-term improvements in innovation.

U.S. stock funds record second-largest withdrawals this year: ICI
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S.-based stock mutual funds posted their second-largest outflows of the year, Investment Company Institute data showed on Wednesday, accelerating a rotation to the perceived…

Gundlach’s DoubleLine reaches $100 billion assets under management in May
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jeffrey Gundlach’s DoubleLine Capital reached $100 billion in assets under management last month, according to the Los Angeles-based firm Wednesday.

Wells Fargo CFO downplays questions over earnings quality
(Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co CFO John Shrewsberry on Wednesday deflected an analyst’s questions over the quality of the bank’s earnings, saying the results “speak for themselves.”

Pimco foresees U.S. GDP growth at or slightly above trend of 1.5-2 percent
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co said on Wednesday that its baseline view for the U.S. is GDP growth at or slightly above trend of 1.5 percent to 2 percent per year…

NextGen Crowdfunding says new rule spurred investor commitments of over $1 million
(Reuters) – Equity crowdfunding platform NextGen Crowdfunding said on Tuesday that investors made more than $1 million in commitments after new U.S. investment regulations took effect two weeks ago.

Mixed results for hedge funds Greenlight, Third Point, Jana in May
(Reuters) – Three of the hedge fund industry’s most closely followed managers reported mixed returns in May, underscoring just how tough it has become to pick winners.

Bank of America targets wealthiest clients with more advisers
(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp’s U.S. Trust business plans to add more than 100 financial advisers who cater to the super-rich as part of its strategy to grow wealth-management revenue, a U.S….

First Mortgage Corp, executives agree to settle SEC fraud charges
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday that California-based First Mortgage Corporation and six of its executives agreed to pay $12.7 million to settle…

BlackRock CEO says he is ‘nervous’ about Europe ahead of Brexit vote
NEW YORK (Reuters) – BlackRock Inc Chief Executive Laurence Fink on Tuesday said he is “nervous” about Europe ahead of a June referendum on whether Britain should remain in European Union, the…

Jefferies hires two restructuring investment bankers
(Reuters) – Jefferies LLC has hired two restructuring bankers, Jeffrey Finger of boutique investment bank Centerview Partners Holdings LLC and Douglas Brickley, formerly of financial advisory firm…

Old Mutual proposes 1,000 pct break-up bonus for CEO Hemphill
LONDON (Reuters) – Anglo-South African financial services firm Old Mutual on Tuesday proposed a maximum pay-out for chief executive Bruce Hemphill of 1,000 percent of his 2016 base salary in the…

Couples get separation anxiety over financial planners
NEW YORK (Reuters) – When Rick Parks and his wife Cindy got married a couple of years ago, the Knoxville couple shared a lot of things together: A home, family trips and holiday gatherings.

Fidelity Contrafund cuts Chipotle stake by 21 percent
BOSTON (Reuters) – The Fidelity Contrafund cut its stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc by 21 percent in April as the burrito chain continued to deal with fallout from last year’s E.coli outbreak.

Doubleline’s Gundlach sees Yellen as more cautious than some Fed officials
(Reuters) – Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital, on Thursday said U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen appears to be more cautious on raising interest rates than some…

Short sellers circle Alibaba amid SEC probe
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Alibaba Group Holding Ltd , which disclosed it is under investigation for its accounting practices, has emerged as one of the short-selling community’s favorite targets in the…

Exclusive: Verizon turns to former Yahoo bankers for bid – sources
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Verizon Communications Inc is working on its bid for Yahoo Inc’s core assets with an investment bank which was, as recently as last year, one of the U.S. internet…

Column: About that June or July rate hike – James Saft
(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

CFPB fines ex-Wells Fargo employee over mortgage fee-shifting scheme
(Reuters) – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined former Wells Fargo & Co employee David Eghbali $85,000 and banned him from working in the mortgage industry for a year for an illegal…

If you waste $50 each time you skip class, would you do it?
NEW YORK (Reuters) – As college attendance wanes through the semester, one professor teaches her 300 geoscience students how to work out the cost of cutting class.

LPC: Weak secondary market could rein in refinancing wave
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A repricing wave has hit the loan space as US borrowers attempt to lower the spread of their existing term loans, though a weak secondary market signals that not every company…

LPC: Gunvor Singapore closes increased $1.04 billion loan
LONDON (Reuters) – Gunvor Group has closed $1.041 billion of syndicated revolving credit facilities to support new activities and existing operations in Asia Pacific, the company said on Thursday.