Where is the AUM going/ what’s up with L/S equities outflow?
https://www.ft.com/content/c5faea4b-2d35-43ac-a61f-54e1144f02e7
read this FT article about l/s outflows. Is that because LPs get the same exposure from PE? Or structural for HFs. Other than l/s, i know there aren’t new seeds in macro, distressed, etc. curious if any LPs on here can speak to where the money is going rn and in The future
Based on the most helpful WSO content, the shift in AUM from Long/Short (L/S) equity hedge funds can be attributed to several factors, rather than a singular cause. Here are some insights:
Passive Investing Surge: There's been a massive asset flight to passive strategies, which has changed market dynamics. As more money flows into index funds and ETFs managed by giants like Blackrock, Vanguard, and Fidelity, the influence of active management, including L/S strategies, has diminished.
Performance Issues: L/S equity hedge funds have faced scrutiny over their ability to generate alpha, especially during bull markets. If they're not outperforming the market or providing sufficient downside protection, investors may look elsewhere.
Fee Structures: The traditional 2 and 20 fee structure of hedge funds has been under pressure due to the lower-cost alternatives available through passive investing and private equity.
Market Conditions: The recent market environment has been challenging for L/S strategies. With central bank policies influencing market liquidity and volatility, some L/S funds have struggled to navigate these conditions effectively.
Risk Appetite: Investors may be seeking different risk/return profiles than what L/S equity funds have historically offered. This could lead to a reallocation towards private equity, which is perceived to offer better long-term growth potential, albeit with different liquidity and risk characteristics.
Diversification: Limited Partners (LPs) might be diversifying their portfolios away from traditional hedge fund strategies towards other alternatives like private credit, real estate, or infrastructure, which can offer uncorrelated returns.
Innovation and New Strategies: There's a possibility that LPs are looking for hedge funds that are innovating with new strategies, such as those focusing on ESG, quantitative methods, or sector-specific expertise.
As for where the money is going, it's likely a combination of the above factors, with allocations shifting towards private equity, other alternative investments, and passive strategies. The future of AUM allocation will depend on the evolving investment landscape, investor preferences, and the ability of L/S equity funds to adapt and demonstrate value to their LPs.
Sources: Random Thoughts on the HF Industry, Is Long/Short Equity Hedge Fund Dead??, Pot, Meet Kettle | The Daily Peel | 04/06/2023, Idea Generation... and Why Wall Street Sucks at It, Shorting Stocks: My Research Process & 7 Rules I Follow
You realize $150bn outflow over 5yrs is peanuts in the context of overall markets, right?
The Fed printed $3trn in a month in 2020, $30bn/yr flows is less than noise.
What? If there is loads of money being printed/in the system then the fact they are getting net outflows is even worse? Don’t follow this logic
Sorry I’ve got no clue what the size of AUM in l/s is. 150 has to be the total size of equities pods in MMs tho, so I figured this has to be a sizeable outflow.
Why would you say so? Any guesstimate what the total L/S HF GMV is in the US?
Ice cold take. Hedge funds are a tiny fraction of the overall equities market. $150bn compares to ~$5tn for hedge funds broadly, only a subset of which are long / short equities. Industry wide gross redemption rates are 5-10%, which is way above historic norms it is the #1 issue most PMs are dealing with.
Source: https://www.barclayhedge.com/solutions/assets-under-management/hedge-fu…
easy one: mostly to large platforms and large multi-strat funds.
LPs finally realised they can't entrust these non-quant fundamental apes with their money and put their capital elsewhere, either to MM or multi-strat where there's at least one quantitative overlay.
It's 21st century, fundamental stockpicking is outdated and will be phased out. The evolutionary forces of investing will force Darwinian natural selection upon the HF space and will cleanse the lowlife fundamental apes from existence.
A few things I would need to be convinced of first:
the issue with quant strategies that rely on processing historical data is that efficient markets says any arbs will be found and dried up quickly. Quant as a hedge fund product has a large liquidity problem that discretionary strategies don’t. If you deploy too much capital into quant suddenly your strategy doesn’t print money anymore.
On the idea of the natural selection of markets, If anything this applies most to quants. Quants rely on the same edge: deep analysis of historical data. The big emphasis on nonconcensus thinking in discretionary investing is really staking a claim in alpha. I.e. if your capable of predicting the future in a meaningful way, your producing an investment that a quant / beta rider can’t. Going long on some non consensus idea will always make money if your right most of the time.
I think the poster saying the flow is into multi strat is right. Quant is affective as a HF product as overlay. Multi strats use it under discretionary pods in equities, cmds, and macro but it has never been the bulk of AUM. The reason why this is the case is because a truly great quant strategy would never open to public investors. Rather, they would spam the arb internally because expanding AUM would reduce the rate of return. The best places (Tower, PDT, RenTech) will use strats that multimanagers wouldn’t even dream above, but unfortunately they can’t pour the trillions of dollars of AUM across the world that needs to be allocated.
EDIT: look bro I’m all for views on natural selection of markets, look at my profile pic. But I also think this future you speak of is a reality in the finance sector that is bad for IPs in both discretionary and quant strats
That's far from true, quants have more of a crowding problem even though their allocated capital is much smaller.
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