ICYMI - January 17 - SmartBrief

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ICYMI – January 17

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Modern Money

A collection of stories from SmartBrief publications and around the web…

Hedge funds run by women outperform industry index: In recent years, female hedge fund managers have delivered significantly better turns for clients than hedge funds as a whole, according to a report by the consulting firm Rothstein Kass. During a period of 6.5 years ending in June 2013, an index measuring the performance of female alternative investment managers gained 6% while an index of the overall performance of hedge funds declined 1.1%.

This reminds me of the “Neuroscience of Risk” presentation John Coates gave at last year’s CBOE Risk Management Conference. Coates was asked why there aren’t more women on trading floors. “I don’t think it is risk aversion. … There is no difference in risk aversion between men and women. There is a difference though in the amount of information on which they are willing to act. Men will take a shred of information and put on a trade. Women don’t seem to want to do that. … Trading floors at banks may be 5% women, but when you look at asset managers in the City of London, they are 50 to 60% women. That’s risk-taking, but you have more time to make your decision.”

SIFMA predicts U.S. economy to expand 2.7% this year: Officials from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association have increased their prediction for U.S. economic growth to an annual rate of 2.7% this year from a previous estimate of 2.6%. SIFMA also expects unemployment to drop to 6.7%. The group also noted that retirement balances are recovering. “Total U.S. retirement assets, by mid-year last year, grew to about $21 trillion, which broke the previous year record of all time,” said SIFMA Chairman Jim Rosenthal, chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley.

 The Mind of the Chinese Trader: Over at OpenMarkets, Daryl Guppy sheds some light on the mind set and methodologies of Chinese traders.

More from the Milken Institute on “crowdsourcing”: Daniel Gorfine, director of financial markets policy, was on Capitol Hill to testify on the SEC crowdfunding proposal. “The SEC – subject to the constraint of specific requirements set forth by Title III of the law – should foster the development of “crowd investing” by minimizing costs and constraints associated with this new capital-raising tool, while simultaneously limiting downside risk to investors through an emphasis on investor caps. This approach will allow for the evolution of this market innovation and the related opportunity to assess its central hypothesis: that in an interconnected Internet-centric world there is “wisdom in the crowd.”

FSI and LPL roll out new mobile apps: From the advisory world, the Financial Services Institute and LPL Financial both unveiled upgrades to their mobile apps.

Get ready for Davos: Watch this space next week for coverage of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.