Industry WIKI

The absolute return or simply return is a measure of the gain or loss on an investment portfolio expressed as a percentage of invested capital. The adjective "absolute" is used to stress the distinction with the relative return measures (often used by long-only stock funds) that are based on comparison to a benchmark.

In financial economics, asset pricing refers to the formal development of the principles used in pricing, together with the resultant models. The treatment develops the interrelated paradigms of general equilibrium asset pricing and rational asset pricing, the latter corresponding to risk neutral pricing.

In mathematical finance, the Black–Scholes equation, also called the Black–Scholes–Merton equation, is a partial differential equation (PDE) governing the price evolution of derivatives under the Black–Scholes model. Broadly speaking, the term may refer to a similar PDE that can be derived for a variety of options, or more generally, derivatives.

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

Convergence trade is a trading strategy consisting of two positions: buying one asset forward—i.e., for delivery in future (going long the asset)—and selling a similar asset forward (going short the asset) for a higher price, in the expectation that by the time the assets must be delivered, the prices will have become closer to equal (will have converged), and thus one profits by the amo

Convertible arbitrage is a market-neutral investment strategy often employed by hedge funds. It involves the simultaneous purchase of convertible securities and the short sale of the same issuer's common stock.

Day trading is a form of speculation in securities in which a trader buys and sells a financial instrument within the same trading day. This means that all positions are closed before the market closes for the trading day to avoid unmanageable risks and negative price gaps between one day's close and the next day's price at the open. Traders who trade in this capacity are generally class

Event-driven investing or Event-driven trading is a broad term encompassing hedge fund investment strategies that seeks to exploit pricing inefficiencies that may occur before or after an event. Examples of such events could be an earnings call, bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, or spinoff. In more recent times market practitioners have expanded this definition to include additional event

Fixed-income arbitrage is a group of market-neutral-investment strategies that are designed to take advantage of differences in interest rates between varying fixed-income securities or contracts (Jefferson, 2007). Arbitrage in terms of investment strategy, involves buying securities on one market for immediate resale on another market in order to profit from a price discrepancy.

Fixed-Income Relative-Value Investing (FI-RV) is a hedge fund investment strategy made popular by the failed hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.

Front running, also known as tailgating, is the practice of entering into an equity (stock) trade, option, futures contract, derivative, or security-based swap to capitalize on advance, nonpublic knowledge of a large ("block") pending transaction that will influence the price of the underlying security. In essence, it means the use of knowledge of an impending trade to engage in a person

Global macro trading is an investment strategy that leverages macroeconomic and geopolitical data to analyze and predict moves in financial markets. Large-scale or "macro" political and economic events can disproportionately impact certain sectors, such as the energy, commodity, and currency markets, over others. The strategy typically employs forecasts and analysis of interest rate tren

In mathematical finance, the Greeks are the quantities (known in calculus as partial derivatives; first-order or higher) representing the sensitivity of the price of a derivative instrument, such as an option or future, to changes in one or more underlying parameters on which the value of an instrument or portfolio of financial instruments is dependent. The name is used because the most

In financial mathematics, the implied volatility (IV) of an option contract is that value of the volatility of the underlying instrument which, when input in an option pricing model (usually Black–Scholes), will return a theoretical value equal to the price of the option. A non-option financial instrument that has embedded optionality, such as an interest rate cap, can also have an impl

Long/short equity is an investment strategy generally associated with hedge funds. It involves buying equities that are expected to increase in value and selling short equities that are expected to decrease in value. This is different from the risk reversal strategies where investors will simultaneously buy a call option and sell a put option to simulate being long in a stock.

A managed futures account (MFA) or managed futures fund (MFF) is a type of alternative investment in the US in which trading in the futures markets is managed by another person or entity, rather than the fund's owner. Managed futures accounts include, but are not limited to, commodity pools. These funds are operated by commodity trading advisors (CTAs) or commodity pool operators (CPOs),

An investment strategy or portfolio is considered market-neutral if it seeks to avoid some form of market risk entirely, typically by hedging. To evaluate market neutrality requires specifying the risk to avoid. For example, convertible arbitrage attempts to fully hedge fluctuations in the price of the underlying common stock. A portfolio is truly market-neutral if it exhibits zero corre

Monte Carlo methods are used in corporate finance and mathematical finance to value and analyze (complex) instruments, portfolios and investments by simulating the various sources of uncertainty affecting their value, and then determining the distribution of their value over the range of resultant outcomes. This is usually done by help of stochastic asset models. The advantage of Monte C

In the mortgage industry of the United States, mortgage servicing rights (MSR) are the contractual rights to service a mortgage after the mortgage origination process is complete. Mortgage servicing is the management of the repayment of mortgage debt on behalf of the lender, including the collection and recording of mortgage payments. The legal entity that holds the mortgage servicing ri

A multi-manager fund is an investment product that consists of multiple specialized funds. Each specialized fund may invest across different sectors and markets, or in the same asset class but have different investment styles. For example, large cap value fund versus large cap growth fund.

Pequot Capital Management was a multibillion-dollar hedge fund sponsor that closed in 2010. The firm's investment funds invested in a range of markets through a variety of strategies. The firm invested in public equities as well as private equity, venture capital, distressed securities, and various other fixed income securities. The firm closed in 2010 following allegations of insider t

Program trading is a type of trading in securities, usually consisting of baskets of fifteen stocks or more that are executed by a computer program simultaneously based on predetermined conditions. Program trading is often used by hedge funds and other institutional investors pursuing index arbitrage or other arbitrage strategies. There are essentially two reasons to use program trading,

A quantitative fund is an investment fund that relies on systematic, data-driven methods, such as mathematical models, statistical techniques, AI, and machine learning, to make investment decisions, rather than fundamental human analysis. These funds are often referred to as systematic funds, and many employ factor investing strategies such as value and momentum, which are widely studied

In mathematical finance, a replicating portfolio for a given asset or series of cash flows is a portfolio of assets with the same properties (especially cash flows). This is meant in two distinct senses: static replication, where the portfolio has the same cash flows as the reference asset (and no changes need to be made to maintain this), and dynamic replication, where the portfolio doe

Risk arbitrage, also known as merger arbitrage, is an investment strategy that speculates on the successful completion of mergers and acquisitions. An investor that employs this strategy is known as an arbitrageur. Risk arbitrage is a type of event-driven investing in that it attempts to exploit pricing inefficiencies caused by a corporate event.

The Sina or Sinas family was a prominent banking family in the Austrian Empire, ennobled with the title of Barons of Hodos and Kisdia. For less than a century, they were among the wealthiest and most economically influential dynasties in the empire, being the fiercest competitors of the Rothschild family. The Sina family was also the only Christian family among the leading banking houses

The spice trade involved historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices, such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, star anise, clove, and turmeric, were known and used in antiquity and traded in the Eastern world. These spices found their way into the Near East before the beginning of the Christian era, with fantastic tales hiding their true sourc

Squarepoint Capital ("Squarepoint") is a global investment management firm headquartered in New York City & London. The firm is known for its quantitative finance approach to investing. Squarepoint has additional offices in Bangalore, Boston, Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, Houston, Jersey, London, Madrid, Montreal, New York, Paris, Singapore, and Zug.

In finance, statistical arbitrage (Stat Arb or StatArb) is a class of short-term financial trading strategies that employ mean reversion models involving broadly diversified portfolios of securities (hundreds to thousands) held for short periods of time (generally seconds to days). These strategies are supported by substantial mathematical, computational, and trading platforms.

A structured product, also known as a market-linked investment, is a pre-packaged structured finance investment strategy based on a single security, a basket of securities, options, indices, commodities, debt issuance or foreign currencies, and to a lesser extent, derivatives.

Private equity funds and hedge funds are private investment vehicles used to pool investment capital, usually for a small group of large institutional or wealthy individual investors. They are subject to favorable regulatory treatment in most jurisdictions from which they are managed, which allows them to engage in financial activities that are off-limits for more regulated companies.

Volatility smiles are implied volatility patterns that arise in pricing financial options. It is a parameter (implied volatility) that needs to be modified for the Black–Scholes formula to fit market prices. Generally, for a given expiration, options whose strike price differs substantially from the underlying asset's forward price tend to have prices that deviate from their expected pri

Wine fraud relates to dishonest behavior in the commerce of wine. The most prevalent type of fraud involves wines that are adulterated, usually with the addition of cheaper products (such as juices) and sometimes with harmful chemicals and sweeteners (compensating for color or flavor).

York Capital Management (York Capital) is an American investment management company, founded by James Dinan and headquartered in New York City.