- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -

Related

New Fund Blossoms in Challenging Waters

Latest Report

- Advertisement -

Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – After rigorous backtesting and out-of-sample trading, Finnish asset manager Northern Star Partners launched trend-following fund NS Quant shortly before the coronavirus-driven market turmoil. The strategy has been up to the task, as NS Quant gained over ten percent in March and is one of this year’s best performers in the Nordic Hedge Index.

The recently-launched fund relies on an in-house developed strategy, also dubbed NS Quant, to trade liquid equity and commodity futures. The futures-based systematic long/short strategy is based on three interrelated models – momentum, trend, and quality check – to perform irrespective of the direction of broader markets. “NS Quant is a three-step quantitative model that generates entry and exit trading signals and continuously monitors whether the three models are in accord on open positions,” explains Markku Malkamäki, CIO at Northern Star Partners.

Senior Portfolio Manager Kenneth Barner-Rasmussen.

The momentum and trend models are two different, yet non-competing strategies that generate signals to buy on the upswing or sell on the downswing, serving to support or reject each other. The “quality check” model, meanwhile, “acts as a hurdle and is designed to either confirm correct trading signals or oppose false signals,” further elaborates Malkamäki. By maintaining only positions endorsed by all three models, “the strategy tries to eliminate false signals to optimize performance and minimize trading activity,” explains Senior Portfolio Manager Kenneth Barner-Rasmussen, who oversees NS Quant alongside CIO Markku Malkamäki and analyst Markus Malkamäki.

The NS Quant strategy “seeks to participate in uptrends, as well as limit exposure in downtrends or even make a profit out of downtrends,” says Markku Malkamäki, who used to run Northern Star MG Relative Value with Karri Lehtinen. Northern Star MG Relative Value, which was launched under the umbrella of Northern Star Partners during the summer of 2018, employed commodity option trading strategies. The volatility-based fund was closed down in January this year after struggling to perform because of low volatility and occasional sharp reversals.

In backtesting and out-of-sample trading, Northern Star’s NS Quant strategy “captured positive and negative price trends early across asset classes,” says Barner-Rasmussen. “The results from the NS Quant strategy shows that trend-following and momentum models yield results and simultaneously minimize trading activity.” NS Quant is the third-best performing fund in the Nordic Hedge Index in 2020 after gaining 11.6 percent in its first two months.

Welcome to the Nordic Hedge Index!

Subscribe to HedgeBrev, HedgeNordic’s weekly newsletter, and never miss the latest news!

Our newsletter is sent once a week, every Friday.

Eugeniu Guzun
Eugeniu Guzun
Eugeniu Guzun serves as a data analyst responsible for maintaining and gatekeeping the Nordic Hedge Index, and as a journalist covering the Nordic hedge fund industry for HedgeNordic. Eugeniu completed his Master’s degree at the Stockholm School of Economics in 2018. Write to Eugeniu Guzun at eugene@hedgenordic.com

Latest Articles

Fresh Talent, New Funds: ALCUR Expands Reach in Retail Segment

After a wave of portfolio manager hires earlier this year, stock-picking fund boutique ALCUR Fonder is preparing to launch several new funds aimed at...

Quirky Questions for Kathryn Kaminski (AlphaSimplex)

Not every hedge fund conversation needs to revolve around performance charts or trade execution. In HedgeNordic’s Quirky Questions series, we look beyond the strategies to the...

Active Decisions in Passive Wrappers: Othania on ETF Innovation

Founded in early 2016 by brothers Vincent Dilling-Larsen and Christian Mørup-Larsen, Danish fund boutique Othania built its foundation on a proprietary risk model, “Tiger,”...

Rettig Appoints Crescit Manager to Oversee Hedge Fund Strategies

Simon Borgefors has joined Finnish family-owned investment company Rettig as Investment Director for hedge fund strategies in Stockholm, leaving Swedish hedge fund boutique Crescit...

€5m Ticket to Nordic High Yield From German Family Office

A German family office plans an initial €5 million commitment to a UCITS‑compliant Nordic high‑yield fund, with capacity to scale over time. According to...

From Beef to Bitcoin: August’s Wild CTA Ride

In August 2025, the CTA sub-index of the Nordic Hedge Index edged lower after two positive months, reflecting mixed performance among managers. Strong gains...

Allocator Interviews

In-Depth: High Yield

Voices

Request for Proposal

- Advertisement -
HedgeNordic
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.