A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives. Financial regulators generally restrict hedge fund marketing to institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and accredited investors.
A mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe and open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK.
The term soft dollars refers to a Wall Street practice, especially in the asset management and securities industries, and means the benefits provided to an asset manager by a broker-dealer as a result of commissions generated from a financial transaction executed by the broker-dealer for client accounts or funds managed by the asset manager. In a soft dollar arrangement, the investment manager directs commissions generated by a client's or fund's transactions to a broker-dealer or other trading venue. Soft dollars, in contrast to hard dollars which have to be reported, are incorporated into brokerage fees and paid expenses, which may not be reported separately. Most investment managers follow the limitations detailed in Section 28(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In particular, if soft dollar arrangements are entered into with respect to registered investment companies and pension plans, compliance with Section 28(e) is generally required. However, hedge funds, which are generally not registered, may not be subject to the limitations of Section 28(e) and, thus, in some cases, the fund's commissions may be used for the adviser's benefit. In situations where fund commissions are used outside of the Section 28(e) safe harbor, full and comprehensive disclosure must be provided to fund investors.
Morningstar, Inc. is an American financial services firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and was founded by Joe Mansueto in 1984. It provides an array of investment research and investment management services.
Man Group plc is an active investment management business listed on the London Stock Exchange. It provides a range of funds across liquid and private markets for institutional and private investors globally and is the world's largest publicly traded hedge fund company, reporting $151.4 billion in funds under management as of March 2022. The firm is headquartered at Riverbank House in London and employs over 1,400 people in various locations worldwide. The company was a sponsor of the Man Booker Prize from 2002 to 2019.
Lipper Average also known as Lipper Index are a series of indices produced by Lipper, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, that establish benchmarks to measure the performance of a portfolio, or of various mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. They allow an investor, a portfolio manager, or an institutional investor to compare the performance of his/her investment portfolio against other, similar investments. Historical trends, strengths and weaknesses can be evaluated.
FactSet Research Systems Inc., trading as FactSet, is an American financial data and software company headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, United States. The company provides integrated data and software. For fiscal year 2021, FactSet's total ASV and professional services revenues were $1.68 billion. FactSet's total market value is approximately $15 billion.
Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about social change regarded as positive by proponents. Socially responsible investments often constitute a small percentage of total funds invested by corporations and are riddled with obstacles.
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and maintains its headquarters in that city's Bay Adelaide Centre.
London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG) is a United Kingdom-based stock exchange and financial information company headquartered in the City of London, England. It owns the London Stock Exchange, Refinitiv, LSEG Technology, FTSE Russell, and majority stakes in LCH and Tradeweb.
GFMS are research and consultancy company for the precious metal markets. Since 2011 they have been part of Thomson Reuters. As well as other commodities, they research gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper trading.
CDA Investment Technologies was a Maryland-based financial research firm founded by Robert A. Levy. It was a pioneer in early financial databases, but was best known for its mutual fund rankings, whose quarterly release would attract national attention in the 1980s and 1990s. After being bought by the Thomson Corporation in 1987, it was an independent subsidiary until 1998, when it was blended in with Technimetrics to become Thomson Financial Investor Relations.
Markov Processes International, Inc. (MPI) Is a provider of investment research, analytics and technology, used by organizations throughout the financial services industry, including: alternative research groups, hedge funds, hedge fund of funds, family offices, institutional investors, consultants, private banks, asset managers, investment advisors and private wealth professionals.
The Refinitiv Business Classification (TRBC) is an industry classification of global companies. It was developed by the Reuters Group under the name Reuters Business Sector Scheme (RBSS), was rebranded to Thomson Reuters Business Classification (TRBC) when the Thomson Corporation acquired the Reuters Group in 2008, forming Thomson Reuters, and was rebranded again, to The Refinitiv Business Classification (TRBC), in 2020. Since the creation of Refinitiv in October 2018, TRBC has been owned and operated by Refinitiv and is the basis for Refinitiv Indices.
Refinitiv Indices is a line of indices and index services from Refinitiv:
Hedge fund replication is the collective name given to a number of different methods that attempt to replicate hedge fund returns. The hedge fund industry has boomed over recent years and various studies by investment banks as well as academic papers have shown that hedge funds may be nearing an alpha generating capacity constraint. This means hedge funds can no longer produce alpha in aggregate. Replication has been claimed to remove the illiquidity, transparency and fraud risk associated with direct investment in hedge funds. With the belief that the pursuit of alpha is a zero-sum game, more investors are looking to simply add "Hedge Fund Beta" to their portfolio. These early investors have been rewarded as the replicators outperformed their direct investment cousins in 2008 due to their greater liquidity and lower use of leverage.
Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), also known as environmental, social, and governance, is a set of aspects considered when investing in companies, that recommends taking environmental issues, social issues and corporate governance issues into account.
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. is a public corporate services and financial technology company founded in 2007 as a spin-off from management software company Automatic Data Processing. Broadridge supplies public companies with proxy statements, annual reports and other financial documents, and shareholder communications solutions, such as virtual annual meetings.
A commodity trading advisor (CTA) is US financial regulatory term for an individual or organization who is retained by a fund or individual client to provide advice and services related to trading in futures contracts, commodity options and/or swaps. They are responsible for the trading within managed futures accounts. The definition of CTA may also apply to investment advisors for hedge funds and private funds including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in certain cases. CTAs are generally regulated by the United States federal government through registration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and membership of the National Futures Association (NFA).
Refinitiv is an American-British global provider of financial market data and infrastructure. The company was founded in 2018 as a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, which then sold a 55% stake to Blackstone Group LP in August of 2018. In October 2019, Blackstone and Thomson Reuters announced the sale of the company to London Stock Exchange Group. LSEG completed the US$27 billion purchase from the two previous owners in late January of 2021, and Refinitiv is now a subsidiary of LSEG. The company has an annual turnover of $6 billion with more than 40,000 client companies in 190 countries.
