Latest news with #AQR
Hans India
9 hours ago
- Business
- Hans India
Collective effort of Centre, RBI brings PSB NPAs down to 2.58 pc: Economist
New Delhi: The significant reduction in gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of India's public sector banks (PSBs) is a result of combined efforts of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the union government, a leading economist said on Wednesday. Economist Pankaj Jaiswal told IANS that the improvement in NPAs had been made possible due to the joint initiative of the RBI and the Centre. According to him, the two were complementary to one another and collaborated closely to achieve the same objective. Jaiswal noted that gross non-performing assets (NPAs) had decreased to 2.58 per cent in 2025, citing a statement by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary. He called this a significant accomplishment for the central government. He discussed the role of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and said that 10 years ago, there was a widespread culture of evergreening, many industrial sector accounts were under stress, and NPAs were much higher. He pointed out that the NDA government, which implemented the IBC to address stressed assets, stopped this practice. He went on to say that the resolution framework assisted in clearing management of persistent defaulters and promoters. Jaiswal noted that the government's strategy for dealing with non-performing assets (NPAs) was clear and targeted. He added that the RBI's introduction of the Asset Quality Review (AQR) was crucial in keeping loans from being classified as non-performing assets (NPAs). He told IANS that the central bank also made sure that stressed assets were monitored at the branch level, which greatly aided in the reduction of non-performing assets. He further added that the process of loan disbursement had undergone a major transformation. Banks now review a borrower's credit history and assess repayment capacity before approving loans, which, according to him, had strengthened both disbursal and monitoring systems, the economist said. The total amount locked up in the gross NPAs of public sector banks has declined from Rs 6,16,616 crore in March 2021 to Rs 2,83,650 crore in March 2025.
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Quant Hedge Funds Ride Whiplash Markets to First-Half Riches
(Bloomberg) -- From Treasury market reversals to trade threats, the first half of 2025 was dominated by policy upheaval and Wall Street angst. The dollar famously fell, while commodities and risky assets were whipsawed. But inside the markets where the world's biggest quants operate, a funny thing happened: Time-honored trading patterns prevailed. Foreign Buyers Swoop on Cape Town Homes, Pricing Out Locals Massachusetts to Follow NYC in Making Landlords Pay Broker Fees NYC Commutes Resume After Midtown Bus Terminal Crash Chaos Struggling Downtowns Are Looking to Lure New Crowds What Gothenburg Got Out of Congestion Pricing Markets rewarded the strong over the weak, widening the gap between winners and losers amid a return to what AQR Capital Management's Cliff Asness has called 'basic rational investing.' That wide dispersion, as the industry calls it, proved fertile territory for systematic hedge funds, which scored some of the strongest returns so far in 2025. Strong performers included Marshall Wace's TOPS, Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund and AQR Delphi Long-Short Equity, which all climbed about 11%, beating broader hedge-fund performance. Voleon Composition, a machine-learning hedge fund, gained 12.8%, while Two Sigma Spectrum was up 7.6%. 'Some companies are doing better than others again,' said Richard Mathieson, managing director at BlackRock, whose equity market neutral fund is up 8% this year. 'So for that process where you're taking a fresh up-to-date view in every security in the market and building it into a portfolio, the opportunity set is just a lot more compelling.' Systematic stock strategies managed to thrive against a backdrop of rapid-fire market shocks from January through June, a stretch that saw the S&P 500 stage its biggest reversal since 2009 and commodity volatility surge to the highest in three years at one point. Treasuries lurched from their longest winning streak since 2016 in February, before succumbing to the worst weekly drop in 24 years just a little more than a month later. These quants made money not by avoiding the upheavals, but by riding a market where stocks started moving more independently. The question now is whether that investing edge will hold, as calmer markets and resilient economic data — with Thursday's jobs report landing stronger than expected — push the S&P 500 to fresh all-time highs. All told, 2025 is extending a renaissance for computer-driven stock traders, following the so-called quant winter — the years leading up to the pandemic when few strategies paid off beyond buy-and-hold bets on Big Tech. While their trades can vary, quants typically spread their bets more widely, and slice and dice stocks based on some quantifiable characteristics and historical patterns. That means they're more likely to win in a year like this, with less concentration in mega-caps and different shares dancing to their own beat. For another lens into that, a strategy that bets on US single stocks being more volatile than the overall index has gained 3.5% this year, according to a Premialab index aggregating bank swap products. In terms of commonly used factors — or quant characteristics often used to sort portfolios — momentum, which simply bets on recent winners, was up for a seventh straight quarter, according to a Bloomberg index. That's a sign that for all the market drama, the internal patterns within stocks have been far less fickle. There are some signs that this might be starting to crack, with momentum dropping the most since March this week as investors rotated into laggards. Fading fears of an escalating trade war have revived investor appetite for risk in the past month, fueling a rotation out of so-called quality and low-risk stocks. 'There are fundamental shocks that are affecting individual securities in different ways,' said Andrea Frazzini, head of global stock selection at AQR. 'Combined with the higher volatility and dispersion we've seen, it really means that we can take more risk, we can get closer to our model and we have an easier time to implement our views.' In stark contrast were quant trend followers that need sustained momentum to profit. The cohort, which trades futures across assets, saw their worst half-year performance since 2000, dropping 10.1% so far in 2025, a Societe Generale index shows. The Systematica Bluetrend Fund slid 17% and Man AHL Alpha fell about 7.6%, while Transtrend lost 17.5%. (The fund was impacted by positions in less mainstream markets, such as within commodities and currencies, executive director Andre Honig wrote in an email.) The rotation out of US stocks — which saw shares outside the nation return about three times the S&P 500 — was also reflected in quant performance. Unlike in previous years, AQR's equity models have been scoring stronger returns outside the US, Frazzini added. The firm's Adaptive Equity strategy rose 15.5% in the first-half, while its Delphi trade, which favors lower-risk companies, benefited from the flight to quality earlier. At Man Numeric, Man Group's quant equity unit, Jayendran Rajamony says other than strength in factors like momentum, it can be hard to generalize performance thanks to the growing use of idiosyncratic signals at each fund. The Man Numeric Quantitative Alpha fund was up 18.7% in the first-half. Even with their computer-driven precision, quant programs may still need occasional human intervention, especially when policy shocks, like tariffs, fall outside the bounds of historic patterns. 'One can argue that some very bold new policy thinking simply cannot be captured,' Rajamony said. 'Intervention as a form of managing risk I think is needed to make sure these portfolios navigate an environment like this.' Representatives for Marshall Wace, Renaissance Technologies, Voleon, Two Sigma and Systematica declined to comment. --With assistance from Lu Wang. (Updates table with additional funds. Previous version corrected the full name of Voleon's fund in third paragraph and table.) SNAP Cuts in Big Tax Bill Will Hit a Lot of Trump Voters Too America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried For Brazil's Criminals, Coffee Beans Are the Target How to Steal a House Sperm Freezing Is a New Hot Market for Startups ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Reuters
01-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
AQR Capital Management reaches mid-year with double digit returns, source says
LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Cliff Asness's AQR Capital Management finished the first half of the year with positive returns in several of its funds, said a source on Tuesday. The $142 billion hedge fund returned a positive 0.9% performance in June in its multi-strategy fund, Apex Strategy, with a net 11.4% return so far this year, the source with knowledge of the matter said. AQR's Helix Strategy which trades equity trends posted an 0.4% return for June and is up 7.4% for the year through June. But the hedge fund's AQR Delphi Long-Short Equity Strategy June performance declined 2.1% in June, still leaving it with a positive 11.6% half-year return.
CNBC
01-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Cliff Asness' AQR sees multiple hedge funds up double digits in 2025, beating the market
AQR Capital Management took advantage of a volatile first half of 2025, with a duo of hedge funds doubling the S&P 500's return. The Apex strategy from Cliff Asness' firm, which combines stocks, macro and arbitrage trades and has $4.3 billion in assets under management, rallied 11.4% in the first six months of the year, according to a person familiar with AQR's returns who asked to be anonymous as the information is private. AQR's long-short Delphi equity fund, with $4.1 billion in assets under management, gained 11.6% net of fees in the first half of 2025, the person said. The stock market staged a stunning rebound this year even as uncertainty remains amid an aggressive trade war and Middle East escalation. The S&P 500 has rebounded from a near 20% sell-off in April, going on to score a new record high on Friday and again on Monday. The equity benchmark is up 5.3% year to date. AQR's alternative trend-following Helix strategy has returned 7.4% so far this year, the person said. Asness co-founded AQR in 1998 after a stint at Goldman Sachs. He and his partners established the quant-driven firm's investment philosophy at the University of Chicago's Ph.D. program, focusing on value and momentum strategies. The firm has successfully expanded into multistrategy approaches in recent years. AQR has $142 billion in assets under management, up from about $99 billion at the start of 2024. AQR declined to comment.
Bloomberg
03-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
AQR's Cliff Asness Hails Return of ‘Basic Rational Investing'
Years of speculative excess are giving way to healthier markets where fundamentals now matter, boosting quant stock-picking strategies across the board, according to AQR Capital Management 's Cliff Asness. While tariff-induced volatility has whipsawed the S&P 500 Index and hedge funds alike, it's been a boon for quant approaches that go long and short across hundreds of stocks. Among the winners, the AQR Equity Market Neutral Fund has returned roughly 15% this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
