Prisma conducts ongoing research and analysis of key trends and issues shaping today’s landscape for alternative investments. Our research aims to explore topics of interest in the hedge fund community and provide investors with clarity around commonly faced challenges and issues.
Mid Year Thoughts on the Global Economy and Asset Markets
Gavyn Davies - Founding Partner and Economist
This article offers some reflections on the behaviour of the global economy and asset
markets at the end of the first half of 2010.
European Central Bank Policy Intervention
Gavyn Davies - Founding Partner and Economist
The initial market reaction to the package of fiscal and monetary measures announced by the European
Union last weekend has been optimistic.
Estimating the Premium for Hedge Fund Illiquidity
Emanuel Derman PHD, Patrick O’Sullivan FIA, Paul Roberts
The events of 2008 have re-emphasized the importance of the role liquidity plays in hedge fund investing. In this paper we consider a number of liquidity issues that investors face and the approach to them implemented at Prisma.
Timing Market Beta and Hedge Funds
Paul Roberts, Patrick O’Sullivan FIA
In this paper we consider the historical performance of the hedge fund industry relative to mainstream asset classes following periods of asset price dislocation. The aim is to assess whether a hedge fund allocation remains compelling when markets appear “cheap”.
Models
Emanuel Derman, Financial Analysts Journal
The greatest danger in financial modeling is the age-old sin of idolatry. Financial markets are alive, but a model is a limited, human work of art. Although a model may be entrancing, we will not be able to breathe life into it, no matter how hard we try. To confuse the model with the world is to embrace a future disaster driven by the belief that humans obey mathematical rules.
Reflections on Q4 2008
Gavyn Davies
The final quarter of 2008 will long be remembered as one of the most disastrous periods for asset price performance for many decades. The credit crunch…took a new leg downwards after the failure of Lehman Brothers in mid September, and for a while during the fourth quarter liquidity disappeared from many financial markets.