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By Patrick Keon After peaking in 2013 with net inflows of over $75 billion for the year, interest in funds in Lipper’s alternative strategies suite of classifications dipped; flows were relatively flat for 2014 (+$370 million) and have fallen into the red for 2015 year to date (-$16.6 billion). Lipper defines alternative strategy funds as portfolios that generate correlation benefits to traditional, long-only-constructed funds, as well as portfolios that implement a hedge fund-like strategy, often incorporating one or a combination of the following: leverage, derivatives, short positions, and/or multiple asset classes. Net inflows for the group for 2013 grew dramatically higher than the fund-flow results from 2012 (+$12.2 billion) and 2011 (+$6.7 billion). Almost all the net new money taken in by Alts for 2013 came from funds in just three classifications: Absolute Return Funds (+$38.1 billion), Alternative Long/Short Equity Funds (+$19.7 billion), and Alternative Credit-Focus Funds (+$15.0 billion). Leading the Absolute Return group was Wells Fargo Advantage Absolute Return Fund (MUTF: WARDX ) (+$5.5 billion) and John Hancock Funds II Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund (MUTF: JHAIX ) (+$2.7 billion). All three of these groups also posted positive numbers for 2014: Alternative Credit-Focus Funds (+$15.4 billion) once again recorded strong net inflows, but the results from Absolute Return Funds (+$4.2 billion) and Alternative Long/Short Equity Funds (+$8.2 billion) were more muted. The category that weighed down the overall flows results for Alt funds for 2014 and year to date 2015 has been the Alternative Global Macro group. Global macro funds saw over $32 billion leave their coffers last year and have had $16.7 billion of net outflows so far this year. PIMCO Unconstrained Bond Fund (-$19.9 billion) was the largest contributor to the negative flows from global macro funds, aided by PIMCO All Asset All Authority Fund (MUTF: PUBFX ) (-$14.6 billion) and MainStay Marketfield Fund (MUTF: MFPDX ) (-$13.1 billion). (click to enlarge) Scalper1 News
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