Trading Advisor Selection System

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The Trading Advisor Selection System (TASS) or Lipper TASS database contains monthly data for hedge funds. It is one of the most representative database for hedge funds, containing over 7000 of actively reporting hedge funds. Typical information contained in the database are monthly returns, fee structure, and some specific information as the investments type, strategic focus. The monthly data goes back to at least May 1973 and is often used by researches for large-scale data analysis. [1] [2]

Funds that do not report returns anymore (closed funds, liquidated funds for example) formed the TASS Graveyard database, which contains over 6000 funds. [3]

In March 2005, Lipper acquired TASS Research and the TASS database from Tremont Capital. [4]

Related Research Articles

A hedge fund is an 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 to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives. Financial regulators generally restrict hedge fund marketing except to institutional investors, high net worth individuals and others who are considered sufficiently sophisticated.

Passive management is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds.

An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that the fund can track a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index. Those rules may include tracking prominent indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average or implementation rules, such as tax-management, tracking error minimization, large block trading or patient/flexible trading strategies that allow for greater tracking error but lower market impact costs. Index funds may also have rules that screen for social and sustainable criteria.

An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges. ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold throughout the day on stock exchanges while mutual funds are bought and sold based on their price at day's end. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, and/or commodities such as gold bars, and generally operates with an arbitrage mechanism designed to keep it trading close to its net asset value, although deviations can occasionally occur. Most ETFs are index funds, that is, they hold the same securities in the same proportions as a certain stock market index or bond market index. The most popular ETFs in the U.S. replicate the S&P 500 Index, the total market index, the NASDAQ-100 index, the price of gold, the "growth" stocks in the Russell 1000 Index, or the index of the largest technology companies. With the exception of non-transparent actively managed ETFs, in most cases, the list of stocks that each ETF owns, as well as their weightings, is posted daily on the website of the issuer. The largest ETFs have annual fees of 0.03% of the amount invested, or even lower, although specialty ETFs can have annual fees well in excess of 1% of the amount invested. These fees are paid to the ETF issuer out of dividends received from the underlying holdings or from selling assets.

Renaissance Technologies LLC, also known as RenTech or RenTec, is an American hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York, on Long Island, which specializes in systematic trading using quantitative models derived from mathematical and statistical analyses. The firm is regarded as one of the "most secretive and successful" hedge funds in the world. Their signature Medallion fund is famed for the best record in investing history. Renaissance was founded in 1982 by James Simons, an award-winning mathematician and former Cold War code breaker.

Market timing is the strategy of making buying or selling decisions of financial assets by attempting to predict future market price movements. The prediction may be based on an outlook of market or economic conditions resulting from technical or fundamental analysis. This is an investment strategy based on the outlook for an aggregate market, rather than for a particular financial asset.

Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities and other assets in order to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of the investors. Investors may be institutions or private investors.

Active management refers to a portfolio management strategy where the manager makes specific investments with the goal of outperforming an investment benchmark index or target return. In passive management, investors expect a return that closely replicates the investment weighting and returns of a benchmark index and will often invest in an index fund.

A "fund of funds" (FOF) is an investment strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing directly in stocks, bonds or other securities. This type of investing is often referred to as multi-manager investment. A fund of funds may be "fettered", meaning that it invests only in funds managed by the same investment company, or "unfettered", meaning that it can invest in external funds run by other managers.

Asset allocation Investment strategy

Asset allocation is the implementation of an investment strategy that attempts to balance risk versus reward by adjusting the percentage of each asset in an investment portfolio according to the investor's risk tolerance, goals and investment time frame. The focus is on the characteristics of the overall portfolio. Such a strategy contrasts with an approach that focuses on individual assets.

Thomson Reuters Lipper is an American financial services firm. Founded in 1973 as Lipper Analytical Services, it was acquired by Reuters in 1998.

Alternative investment

An alternative investment is an investment in any asset class excluding stocks, bonds, and cash. The term is a relatively loose one and includes tangible assets such as precious metals, art, wine, antiques, coins, or stamps and some financial assets such as real estate, commodities, private equity, distressed securities, hedge funds, exchange funds, carbon credits, venture capital, film production, financial derivatives, and cryptocurrencies. Investments in real estate, forestry and shipping are also often termed "alternative" despite the ancient use of such real assets to enhance and preserve wealth. In the last century, fancy color diamonds have emerged as an alternative investment class as well. Alternative investments are to be contrasted with traditional investments.

A 130–30 fund or a ratio up to 150/50 is a type of collective investment vehicle, often a type of specialty mutual fund, but which allows the fund manager simultaneously to hold both long and short positions on different equities in the fund. Traditionally, mutual funds were long-only investments. 130–30 funds are a fast-growing segment of the financial industry; they should be available both as traditional mutual funds, and as exchange-traded funds (ETFs). While this type of investment has existed for a while in the hedge fund industry, its availability for retail investors is relatively new.

Expert networks refer to a type of business that connects companies with expert resources or subject-matter experts, such as academics, C-levels, founders, and high-level officials to provide valuable information, data, or assistance.

Performance attribution, or investment performance attribution is a set of techniques that performance analysts use to explain why a portfolio's performance differed from the benchmark. This difference between the portfolio return and the benchmark return is known as the active return. The active return is the component of a portfolio's performance that arises from the fact that the portfolio is actively managed.

A portfolio manager is a professional responsible for making investment decisions and carrying out investment activities on behalf of vested individuals or institutions. The investors invest their money into the portfolio manager's investment policy for future fund growth such as a retirement fund, endowment fund, education fund, or for other purposes. Portfolio managers work with a team of analysts and researchers, and are responsible for establishing an investment strategy, selecting appropriate investments, and allocating each investment properly towards an investment fund or asset management vehicle.

Highland Capital Management is an alternative investment management firm that manages hedge funds, structured investment vehicles and mutual funds. The firm invests in global public equities, as well as fixed income markets with a focus on leveraged loans, high yield bonds, and structured products.

A quantitative fund is an investment fund in which investment decisions are determined by numerical methods rather than by human judgment. See Quantitative analysis (finance) § Quantitative investment management.

Winton Group

Winton Group, Ltd is a British investment management firm founded by David Harding. In the United States, Winton is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment advisor and with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a CTA, and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. The company trades on more than 100 global futures markets in a wide variety of asset classes and on global equity markets. The firm was launched with $1.6 million in 1997 and as of December 2017 it held $28.5 billion in assets under advisement. Winton Group has eight offices around the world: London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney, San Francisco, and Zurich.

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).

References

  1. Avci, S. Burcu (2019). "Chapter 2: Data and Summary Statistics". Performance, Managerial Skill, and Factor Exposures in Commodity Trading Advisors and Managed Futures Funds. Irvine, CA and Boca Raton, FL: Dissertation.com. p. 37. ISBN   978-1-61233-473-8.
  2. Gao, Chao; Haight, Timothy D.; Yin, Chengdong (2019). "Fund Selection, Style Allocation, and Active Management Abilities: Evidence From Funds of Hedge Funds' Holdings". Financial Management. 49: 135–159. doi:10.1111/fima.12258. ISSN   1755-053X.
  3. Peng (17 October 2014). "New database: Lipper Hedge Fund Database (TASS) | Watson Library Blog". Columbia University Libraries: Watson Library Blog. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  4. Williamson, Christine (11 December 2006). "Tremont latest to make leap". Pensions & Investments . Retrieved 22 January 2011.