Facebook Twitter Instagram
    • About
    • Subscribe
    • Contact
    • Report Library
    • Manager Login
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn RSS
    HedgeNordic
    • Home
    • Allocator Angle
    • Report Library
    • Nordic Hedge Award
      • Nominations 2021 Nordic Hedge Award
      • Rookie of the Year
      • Jury Board
      • Historic Winners
      • Statistics
    • Nordic Hedge Index
    • Webinars & Podcasts
    HedgeNordic

    Handsome Payoff For Asgard Low Risk Approach

    Glenn Leaper, PhDBy Glenn Leaper, PhD16/06/2017No Comments
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email

    Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – With +19% returns in the past year, Asgard’s Fixed Income EUR 600 million Fund must be doing something right. The key lies in the fund’s preference for the safest bonds, instead of riskier ones, with a dollop of leverage on top.

    The Copenhagen-based fund’s investment policy is based on a top-down approach that follows a disciplined investment process divided into three phases: Macro and Micro analysis, portfolio construction, and evaluation/monitoring. Strategies are divided into five sub-strategies: Directional, Yield Curve, Volatility, Event and Relative Value, the latter of which primarily focuses on analysis of investment opportunities in the Danish and Swedish mortgage markets. A proprietary model is used to forecast and pick the best risk premiums in short-term, high quality bond markets. Most of the fund’s bonds, such as Danish mortgage bonds, are triple-A rated.

    Ingrained in the management’s belief is a high degree of risk control and maintaining a diversified and largely uncorrelated portfolio. “That’s the core of our strategy,” Moma Advisors’ (which runs the fund) Chief Investment Adviser Morten Mathiesen (pictured at the 2016 Nordic Hedge Award), told Bloomberg’s Jonas Cho Walsgard. “The best risk-adjusted returns are actually the low volume trades.”

    Ignoring the negative direction of interest rates in Europe at a time of high risk for bond investors (and as the ECB prepares to scale back stimulus), Mathiesen reemphasizes the fund’s lack of need to speculate whether rates go up or down. “We’re typically fully hedged,” he says. “We’re long risk premiums in fixed income. We have a strong bias towards the Nordics. We invest in anything that has a risk premium that doesn’t involve credit risk.”

    The fund bets on yield spreads, country spreads and money market spreads in European fixed income markets. Its biggest risk is in Scandinavian covered bonds, but the fund has recently decreased holdings due to what Mathiesen says is “a lot of spread narrowing”. The fund hedges the bonds with derivatives in order to offset the interest rate risk and is only exposed to the spread, which is usually small, so the fund borrows money to boost the return. Current leverage is roughly x11, with the volatility target set at 6%.

    “We’ve been successful in providing alpha. We’ve produced a higher risk-adjusted return than what carry should justify in the positions we hold,” Mathiesen told Walsgard.

    Read the Bloomberg article here.

     

     

     

     

    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email
    Previous ArticleHedge Funds Hold On in May – Barely
    Next Article Cevian Capital: “Constructive Activism”
    Glenn Leaper, PhD

    Glenn W. Leaper, Associate Editor and Political Risk Analyst with Nordic Business Media AB, completed his Ph.D. in Politics and Critical Theory from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2015. He is involved with a number of initiatives, including political research, communications consulting (speechwriting), journalism and writing his post-doctoral book. Glenn has an international background spanning the UK, France, Austria, Spain, Belgium and his native Denmark. He holds an MA in English and a BA in International Relations.

    Related Posts

    CTAs Starting Summer on a High Note

    Nordic Quant Funds Win Awards

    A Light-Footed Shipping-Only Strategy

    Add A Comment

    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

    Most read today:
    • Mortgage Funds – Alternative Fixed Income, or Just the New T...
    • Lower no Longer: Cash & Carry in the Emissions Markets
    • Adding Leverage to a Fund Does Not Always Increase Risk
    • Tidan is Different
    • ESG Implementation in Mandatum’s Private Debt Program
    • One-Stop Institutional Shop for Crypto
    • In-Depth: Inflation Protection

    Ukraine, Supply-Chain Shortages and Soaring Prices – Accelerators of Sustainable Development

    18/05/2022

    New Theme: Real Income Destruction

    17/05/2022

    Blockification

    16/05/2022

    The Inflation Puzzle

    12/05/2022
    Promotion:
    Video: Manager Interviews
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tni7dQvQrmo

    Subscribe to our newsletter

    HedgeNordic: Your Single Access Point to the Nordic Hedge Fund Industry!

    Check your inbox now to confirm your subscription.

    Most read articles this week:
    • Real Assets: AP4’s True “Alternative”
    • Special Report: Private Markets
    • European Real Estate in the New Economic Climate
    • PFA Hires PM from Hedge Fund Space
    • ESG Implementation in Mandatum’s Private Debt Program
    • Month in Review – May 2022
    • Recent
    • NHX
    • In Depth

    Procrastinated Risk is Knocking on the Door

    23/06/2022

    PFA Hires PM from Hedge Fund Space

    22/06/2022

    Month in Review – May 2022

    22/06/2022

    Real Assets: AP4’s True “Alternative”

    20/06/2022

    Month in Review – May 2022

    22/06/2022

    Month in Review – April 2022

    12/05/2022

    Follow Your Favourite Hedge Fund

    11/05/2022

    Month in Review – March 2022

    13/04/2022

    Ukraine, Supply-Chain Shortages and Soaring Prices – Accelerators of Sustainable Development

    18/05/2022

    New Theme: Real Income Destruction

    17/05/2022

    Blockification

    16/05/2022

    The Inflation Puzzle

    12/05/2022
    Newsletter Subscription:
    Most Recent Posts:

    Procrastinated Risk is Knocking on the Door

    23/06/2022

    PFA Hires PM from Hedge Fund Space

    22/06/2022

    Month in Review – May 2022

    22/06/2022

    Real Assets: AP4’s True “Alternative”

    20/06/2022

    European Real Estate in the New Economic Climate

    20/06/2022
    Publisher

    Nordic Business Media AB
    Corporate No.: 556838-6170
    BOX 7285
    SE-103 89 Stockholm, Sweden

    VAT No.: SE-556838617001
    Tel.:+46 (0) 8 5333 8688
    Mob.: +46 (0) 7 06566688
    Email: info@hedgenordic.com

    STAY INFORMED

    HedgeNordic: Your Single Access Point to the Nordic Hedge Fund Industry!

    Subscribe to our newsletter:

    Check your inbox now to confirm your subscription.

    RSS Hedge Fund Job Digest
    • Fund Quant Developer 24/06/2022
    • Corporate Accountant 24/06/2022
    • Institutional Sales – Assistant Vice President 24/06/2022
    • Quality Controls Analyst 24/06/2022
    • Counterparty Credit Risk VP 24/06/2022
    • Assistant Trust Officer 24/06/2022
    • Assistant Vice President – Residential Mortgage Analytics 24/06/2022
    • Senior Lead Analyst 24/06/2022

    Copyright © 2022 Nordic Business Media AB

    © 2022 Nordic Business Media AB
    • About
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Policy

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

    HedgeNordic
    Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

    Strictly Necessary Cookies

    Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

    If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.