Man Group assets $168.6 billion, roughly in line with expectations
LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - London-listed Man Group (EMG.L), opens new tab, reported on Thursday a roughly 1% rise in assets under management to $168.6 billion for the year to Dec. 30.
This was broadly in line with the $171.6 billion expected by analysts. The firm recorded net outflows of $3.3 billion for 2024, driven by the $7.0 billion single client redemption in the third quarter of 2024, the company said in a statement.
Against the backdrop of increased market volatility and a rapid rise in long-term rates to start the year, hedge funds levered up to bulk up trading to new heights during the course of 2024, to trade on U.S. elections and volatility spikes.
"In another volatile year for markets, we delivered good performance for our clients, with all our product categories contributing positively," said the hedge fund's CEO Robyn Grew in a statement.
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
TRADING DAY London calling, stocks crawling higher
ORLANDO, Florida, June 9 (Reuters) - TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist I'm excited to announce that I'm now part of Reuters Open Interest (ROI), an essential new source for data-driven, expert commentary on market and economic trends. You can find ROI on the Reuters website, and you can follow us on LinkedIn and X. Trade tensions, policy uncertainty and shaky economic data continue to cloud the near-term outlook for world growth, but they remain on the back burner for now as investors kick off the week by pushing global stock markets higher. In my column today I look at why the dollar has depreciated significantly this year regardless of how U.S. stocks and bonds have performed. The main reason? Hedging. More on that below, but first, a roundup of the main market moves. If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today. Today's Key Market Moves London calling, stocks crawling higher It was a fairly quiet start to the week across global markets on Monday, with strong equity gains in Asia followed by a grind higher on Wall Street which lifted the MSCI World index to a fresh record high. The main areas of focus for investors were China's economic 'data dump' for May, then the high-level U.S.-China trade talks in London. The two are connected - the U.S. is a less important market for China than it used to be, underscored in May's trade figures from Beijing and reflected in the lack of concrete progress from the negotiations in London. China's total exports rose 4.8% in May from a year earlier but this masks a huge split between the U.S. and the rest of the world. Exports to the U.S. plunged 34.4% year-on-year in value terms, the sharpest drop since February 2020 just before the pandemic, while exports to the rest of the world rose 11.4%. Monthly data are volatile, of course, and May's figures were also distorted by tariffs. Still, U.S.-bound shipments worth $28.8 billion last month were just 9% of the total $316 billion. Economist Phil Suttle notes that is less than half the average share in the decade leading up to President Donald Trump's first trade war. The London talks are expected to continue on Tuesday. But as was the case following Trump's telephone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, there is little indication of a significant breakthrough, far less China bending to U.S. demands. "U.S. Treasury Secretaries who live in unbalanced economies might not want to throw barbs such as the 'most unbalanced in modern history' at China without first looking at some data," Suttle wrote on Monday. "The choice to fight an opponent should be conditioned on a clear-headed view of its strengths and weaknesses. The U.S. has done a marvelous job of (once again) deluding itself on this front," Suttle added. Still, divisions between the two countries and the threat to global supply chains are proving no barrier to rising stock markets. Japan's Nikkei and the MSCI emerging and Asia ex-Japan indexes rose around 1%, Hong Kong-listed tech stocks rose nearly 3%, and Wall Street closed in the green. Meanwhile, the dollar's trend this year of declining despite U.S. stocks and bonds rising was on full display on Monday. Wall Street closed slightly higher and Treasury yields fell as much as 5 basis points at the short end of the curve, yet the dollar slipped. Many analysts say one of the main reasons for this is non-U.S. investor hedging - more on that below. Dollar floored as investors seek that extra hedge All three major U.S. asset classes – stocks, bonds and the currency – have had a turbulent 2025 thus far, but only one has failed to weather the storm: the dollar. Hedging may be a major reason why. Wall Street's three main indices and the ICE BofA U.S. Treasury index are all slightly higher for the year to date, despite the post-'Liberation Day' volatility, while the dollar has steadily ground lower, losing around 10% of its value against a basket of major currencies and breaking long-standing correlations along the way. The dollar was perhaps primed for a fall. It's easy to forget, but only a few months ago the 'U.S. exceptionalism' narrative was alive and well, and the dollar scaling heights rarely seen in the past two decades. But that narrative has evaporated, as U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial economic policies and isolationist posture on the global stage have made investors reconsider their exposure to U.S. assets. But why is the dollar feeling the burn more than stocks or bonds? Non-U.S. investors often protect themselves against sharp currency fluctuations via the forward, futures or options markets. The difference now is that the risk premium being built into U.S. assets is pushing them – especially equity holders – to hedge their dollar exposure more than they have in the past. Foreign investors have long hedged their bond exposure, with dollar hedge ratios traditionally around 70% to 100%, according to Morgan Stanley, as currency moves can easily wipe out modest bond returns. But non-U.S. equity investors have been much more loath to pay for protection, with dollar hedge ratios averaging between 10% and 30%. This is partly because the dollar was traditionally seen as a 'natural' hedge against stock market exposure, as it would typically rise in 'risk off' periods when stocks fell. The dollar would also normally appreciate when the U.S. economy and markets were thriving – the so-called 'Dollar Smile' – giving an additional boost to U.S. equity returns in good times. A good barometer of global 'real money' investors' view on the dollar is how willing foreign pension and insurance funds are to hedge their dollar-denominated assets. Recent data on Danish funds' currency hedging is revealing. Danish funds' U.S. asset hedge ratio surged to around 75% from around 65% between February and April. According to Deutsche Bank analysts, that 10 percentage point rise is the largest two-month increase in over a decade. Anecdotal evidence suggests similar shifts are taking place across Scandinavia, the euro zone and Canada, regions where dollar exposure is also high. The $266 billion Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan reported a $6.9 billion foreign currency gain last year, mainly due to the stronger dollar. Unless the fund has increased its hedging ratio this year, it will be sitting on huge foreign currency losses. "Investors had embraced U.S. exceptionalism and were overweight U.S. assets. But now, investors are increasing their hedging," says Sophia Drossos, economist and strategist at the hedge fund Point72. And there is a lot of dollar exposure to hedge. At the end of March foreign investors held $33 trillion of U.S. securities, with $18.4 trillion in equities and $14.6 trillion in debt instruments. The dollar's malaise has upended its traditional relationships with stocks and bonds. Its generally negative correlation with stocks has reversed, as has the usually positive correlation with bonds. The divergence with Treasuries has gained more attention, with the dollar diving as yields have risen. But as Deutsche Bank's George Saravelos notes, the correlation breakdown with stocks is "very unusual". When Wall Street has fallen this year the dollar has fallen too, but at a much faster pace. And when Wall Street has risen the dollar has also bounced, but only slightly. This has led to the strongest positive correlation between the dollar and S&P 500 in years, though that's a bit deceptive, as the dollar is sharply down on the year while stocks are mildly stronger. Of course, what we could be seeing is simply a rebalancing. Saravelos estimates that global fixed income and equity managers' dollar exposure was at near record-high levels in the run-up to the recent trade war. This was a "cyclical" phenomenon over the last couple of years rather than a deep-rooted structural one based on fundamentals, meaning it could be reversed relatively quickly. But, regardless, the dollar's hedging headwind seems likely to persist. "Given the size of foreign holdings of both stocks and bonds, even a modest uptick in hedge ratios could prove a considerable FX flow," Morgan Stanley's FX strategy team wrote last month. "As long as uncertainty and volatility persist, we think that hedge ratios are likely to rise as investors ride out the storm." What could move markets tomorrow? Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
High Street struggles as shoppers slam the brakes on spending: Retail sales see weakest growth this year
Shoppers have slammed the brakes on spending amid concerns about their finances and the health of the economy. In a blow to struggling High Street firms, retail sales last month were just 1 per cent higher than in May last year, according to trade association the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and auditor KPMG. That was the weakest performance so far this year and came as consumers stopped splashing out on 'non-essential' items. Food sales were sharply higher, rising 3.6 per cent year-on-year, as the warm weather and bank holidays encouraged people to have barbecues and picnics. But non-food sales fell 1.1 per cent. BRC chief Helen Dickinson said: 'Consumers put the brakes on spending, with the slowest growth in 2025 so far. Retailers are grappling with the £5billion in extra costs from higher National Insurance Contributions [introduced in Labour's Autumn Budget last year] and wages, which kicked in during April. 'They also face an additional £2billion later this year from new packaging taxes and remain concerned about the consequences of the Employment Rights Bill.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
WPP boss quits as UK's biggest ad agency struggles to keep up with the rise of AI
WPP's boss has quit as the UK's biggest advertising agency struggles to keep up with the rise of AI. Mark Read has led the FTSE 100 company for seven years. But during this period, WPP's share price has halved. The industry veteran has also seen the firm at which he spent 30 years lose its crown as the biggest advertising group in the world to French rival Publicis. Read, 58, will stay in the job until the end of the year because the company has not yet hired a successor, leaving analysts speculating about 'chaos' behind the scenes. WPP's share price has fallen more than 50 per cent to 543.4p since Read took over from Sir Martin Sorrell in September 2018, wiping about £6billion off its market capitalisation. And shares have tumbled around 70 per cent from an all-time-high of 1897p in February 2017 and are down 54 per cent from their most recent peak of 1214p in February 2022. Seven-year itch: WPP boss Mark Read (pictured) will leave at the end of 2025 after leading the FTSE 100 company for seven years WPP has increased investment in artificial intelligence in recent years, but it has struggled to keep up with the technology that can create cheaper and faster marketing campaigns. The dominance of tech giants Facebook and Google in the advertising industry has also rocked the traditional agency model. Read said: 'We have positioned WPP at the forefront of the industry with our investments in AI and we are now leading the way as AI transforms marketing.' He added: 'After seven years in the role and with the foundations in place for WPP's continued success, I feel it is the right time to hand over the leadership of this amazing company.' Russ Mould, investment director at broker AJ Bell, said the sharp share price decline 'meant Mark Read's days were always numbered as chief executive'. 'Shareholders can be patient, but there reaches a point where something has to change in order to revive the share price,' he said. 'WPP's culture is rooted in traditional advertising and the world has gone digital, leaving the company scrabbling to play catch up.' Mould added: 'The fact the company hasn't got a replacement lined up would suggest chaos behind closed doors.'
