The broader hedge fund industry struggled during Q3, with the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index down 0.4%, bringing its year to date performance to -1.2%. By contrast, all funds managed or advised by Aurum outperformed this index for the third quarter running, with US dollar share classes returning between +0.8% and +2.4% over the quarter and up between 3.0% and 7.3% YTD.

Did you hear the one about the credit investors in the little rowing boat? With calm waters and rowing with the current all went swimmingly; but with rapids ahead (an excessively levered and overvalued market, higher interest rates, inflation, defaults, poor underwriting standards) a few of our Sunday sailors stood up and began gesticulating. It all went south from there. The story has a soggy ending.

With merger activity at record-breaking levels, Tim Wilkinson examines the key driving forces behind the boom, the risks and the ramifications for investors.

Trade wars, shifting expectations for rate hikes in the US, political crises in Brazil and Italy, fiscal crises in Argentina and Turkey, and a resurgent dollar made it a very tough quarter for risk assets.

In his thought piece, New Kids on the Block, Niklas Torriani, Research Associate, looks at what distinguishes the cryptocurrency phenomenon from blockchain and what the opportunity set is for investors.

While January continued along the lines of 2017, events took a turn in February, creating impacts felt across all markets. This generated opportunities for hedge funds over the quarter.

After seven years of preparation, nearly $2bn in compliance costs and 1.4 million paragraphs of rules, was the hype and speculation around the impact of MiFID II founded? Aglaya Nickolova, Senior Analyst, looks into how in-scope hedge fund managers have coped and the challenges they have faced.

A discussion of single-manager hedge funds versus multi-manager platforms.

GDPR implementation is just days away and the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal is still playing out. Is now a good time to make sure you really understand what alternative data is and how investment managers are reacting to it? Anthony Pratt, of Aurum Research Limited, decrypts alternative data investing.

Aurum Research Limited assesses the current lure of risk premia funds and the role they have within the total portfolio solution.