金融稳定视角下的对冲基金监管思路分析

从金融稳定视角看，对冲基金既可以基于不受直接监管的特点，向市场注入流动性，充当系统性风险“缓释器”，也可以因高杠杆、隐蔽化的操作直接或间接触发市场危机。为趋利避害，本文对构建对冲基金监管框架进行了有益探讨。     

对冲基金及其监管问题研究

近年来,随着金融市场的加速创新和结构性调整,对冲基金的规模也迅速扩张,成为国际金融市场的重要参与者。与传统的资产管理、共同基金相比,对冲基金在投资策略、组织形式等方面具有自己的特点。对冲基金日益扩大的资产规模和自由灵活的投资策略增加了金融市场的流动性、提高了市场效率,但同时也给金融体系带来了新的不稳定因素。2006年以来,对冲基金对金融稳定的影响日益成为全球金融监管者关注的问题。有些国家主张通过间接监管的方式,有些则一直推动加强对对冲基金的直接监管。如何加强对对冲基金的监管,减少对冲基金对金融体系稳定性的负面影响,仍然是全球金融业面临的一项挑战。     

近期对冲基金业的发展特征及对我国的启示

近年来,在全球金融一体化的背景下,随着金融风险理论的发展和金融衍生工具的创新,对冲基金在数量和资产规模上都有了显著增长,并呈现出许多新的变化和特点。本文从对冲基金规模、区域分布、投资组合策略、对国际金融市场的影响、收益-风险特征变化以及监管几个方面,对对冲基金进行了研究与分析,对今后我国如何监管对冲基金进行了探讨,并提出了自己的建议。     

国际对冲基金监管制度比较研究与启示

对冲基金近年发展迅猛,各国根据本国国情初步建立了监管制度。本文认为应从改进治理结构、强化自律监管,加强市场约束、提高透明度等方面,沿运营流程和主要运营当事人两条线索完善对冲基金现有监管法律制度。在金融市场全面开放背景下,我国应在放开私募管制基础上根据市场和金融产品发展进程推进对冲基金逐步合法化。     

对冲基金的美国监管模式及其影响

本文对美国对对冲基金的监管模式进行研究,揭示其特征及其对国际监管环境的影响。研究认为,美国监管模式的实质是强调市场纪律的间接监管。间接监管模式有利于降低交易成本维护市场弹性,但也可能给对冲基金的风险活动留下过大的自由空间。在可见的将来,这一模式仍将是国际主流监管模式。新兴市场国家如何加强对对冲基金的外部监管,需要权衡利弊谨慎从事。     

对冲基金如何影响全球金融市场

"对冲"一词原本指的是一种风险管理方式,而对冲基金的"对冲"则是指这些基金在不同市场或不同证券之间的高卖低买的套利行为。虽然对冲基金的高频套利活动具有增强市场弹性的一面,但其固有的高风险特性难以改变,加之松散的国际监管环境,对冲基金的风险聚合力难以估量。     

套息交易与国际金融动荡新形式

以往发生的金融危机或多或少与国际炒家直接冲击主权货币或经济体系有关。近年来国际金融动荡出现了新形式,日元套息交易成为市场波动新根源。长期低利率及弱日元政策使日元成为了全球套息交易的主要目标。而对冲基金则是交易活动的最大参与者。在新的金融波动形式下,要防范国际市场风险,除了继续加强市场监察,尤其是加强对冲基金的监管;有关方面也应密切关注日本经济数据的变化,了解日本汇率、利率的政策走向,掌握日元资金变动的情况,防止日元利率、汇率突然变化可能给国际市场带来的冲击。     

我国对冲基金的发展路径研究

对冲基金的发展为金融市场提供了流动性,减少了市场的低效率,并为投资者提供了多元化的投资途径和高额回报。但有时候,对冲基金的过度投机也被认为对金体系产生了威胁。2011年被称为中国的对冲基金元年,如何发展对冲基金,并最大限度发挥其对金融市场的正面作用是摆在我们面前的紧迫课题。由于我国资本市场仍处于新兴加转轨阶段,金融制度不够完善,衍生品市场不够成熟,在鼓励发展对冲基金的同时,监管机构也应该做好应有的风险监管工作。     

国际金融系统风险的放大与传导:对冲基金在金融风暴中的作用

作为国际热钱的代表,对冲基金在2007～2008年金融风暴中究竟起了怎样的作用?本文首先分析了对冲基金在危机中去杠杆化操作的原因及后果;通过构造1171家美国上市银行加权平均投资组合,以其月度收益率作为美国银行业代理变量,采用1994～2008年对冲基金月度数据进行经验论证。研究发现:第一,对冲基金去杠杆化放大了系统风险;第二,对冲基金全行业具有杠杆效应的一致性;第三,对冲基金的收益水平与美国银行业紧密相关,因此,对冲基金的行动是资本市场剧烈波动的影响因素,向美国银行业传导了系统风险,推动了金融风暴的形成。最后,本文提出加强对冲基金监管的思路。     

对冲基金新特点及其对中国资本市场的影响

1997年亚洲金融危机以后,由于人们普遍认为对冲基金是这次危机的罪魁祸首,对冲基金格外受到各国的关注。近几年来,对冲基金表现出了新的特点,随着中国对外开放的扩大,对冲基金必然要影响中国的资本市场。近期看,对冲基金对中国的资本市场不会有太大的影响;从长远看,对冲基金进入中国资本市场是迟早的事情。而对冲基金的运作模式,将对我国金融体制改革的深化和资本市场的发展起到很好的借鉴作用。     

Commonality in hedge fund returns: Driving factors and implications

We measure the commonality in hedge fund returns, identify its main driving factor and analyze its implications for financial stability. We find that hedge funds’ commonality increased significantly from 2003 until 2006. We attribute this rise mainly to the increase in hedge funds’ exposure to emerging market equities, which we identify as a common factor in hedge fund returns over this period. Our results show that funds with a high commonality were affected disproportionately by illiquidity and exhibited negative returns during the subsequent financial crisis, thereby providing little diversification benefits to the financial system and to investors.     

Hedge fund politics and portfolios

Consistent with the well-documented relation between political orientation and psychological traits, hedge funds’ political orientations are related to their portfolio decisions. Relative to politically conservative hedge funds, politically liberal hedge funds exhibit a preference for smaller stocks, less mature companies, volatile stocks, unprofitable companies, non-dividend paying companies, and lottery-type securities. Politically liberal hedge funds are also more likely to enter new positions or fully exit existing positions, and make larger adjustments to their U.S. equity market exposure. Our results suggest that psychological characteristics can influence the portfolio decisions of even those at the very top of the financial sophistication ladder.     

Hedge funds and financial stability: Regulating prime brokers will mitigate systemic risks

We review key characteristics of the hedge fund industry, and identify conditions under which this sector can pose a threat to financial stability. Direct regulation of hedge funds that increases transparency does not appear feasible, may create a moral-hazard problem, and may reduce market liquidity. Indirect regulation by prime brokers and market discipline by creditors, counterparties, and investors have been effective in limiting the risks from the hedge fund sector. To reduce systemic risks, more regulation of prime brokers is warranted to avoid competitive dynamics from undermining counterparty risk management practices.     

The fragile capital structure of hedge funds and the limits to arbitrage

During a financial crisis, when investors are most in need of liquidity and accurate prices, hedge funds cut their arbitrage positions and hoard cash. The paper explains this phenomenon. We argue that the fragile nature of the capital structure of hedge funds, combined with low market liquidity, creates a risk of coordination in redemptions among hedge fund investors that severely limits hedge funds' arbitrage capabilities. We present a model of hedge funds' optimal asset allocation in the presence of coordination risk among investors. We show that hedge fund managers behave conservatively and even abstain from participating in the market once coordination risk is factored into their investment decisions. The model suggests a new source of limits to arbitrage.     

Should investors invest in hedge fund-like mutual funds? Evidence from the 2007 financial crisis

This study empirically examines the value added for investors during the 2007–2009 financial crisis from hedge fund-like equity mutual funds, including 130/30, market neutral, and long/short equity funds. We find that based on the information ratio, all market neutral funds, top 90% of long/short funds, and top 25% of 130/30 funds outperform a long-only passive index fund over the crisis period. However, we find little evidence of abnormal performance by the average and median funds in our sample, based on either unconditional or conditional four-factor alphas. The reason for the overall under-performance in the crisis period is that while short positions taken by these funds do generate alpha, the gain from their short positions is not sufficiently large to offset the loss from their long positions. Finally, the abnormal performance of short positions is found to be attributable to managers’ characteristic-adjusted and industry-adjusted stock selection skills. One implication of this study is that even though market neutral and long/short funds on average may not generate alpha, investors can benefit from holding these funds, especially the former, that can provide a hedge against down markets due to their low betas and that can be useful for asset allocation.     

Measuring the market impact of hedge funds

Hedge funds often employ opportunistic trading strategies on a leveraged basis. It is natural to find their footprints in most major market events. A “small bet” by large hedge funds can be a sizeable transaction that can impact a market. This study estimates hedge fund exposures during a number of major market events. In some episodes, hedge funds had significant exposures and were in a position to exert substantial market impact. In other episodes, hedge fund exposures were insignificant, either in absolute terms or relative to other market participants. In all cases, we found no evidence of hedge funds using positive feedback trading strategies. There was also little evidence that hedge funds systematically caused market prices to deviate from economic fundamentals.     

Activist hedge funds and firm disclosure

This study examines whether firms' disclosure decisions are affected by the presence of activist hedge funds. Using a large sample of firms that experienced increases in ownership by activist hedge funds, we find that firms are more likely to cease providing financial guidance or reduce the information in the guidance in the quarter subsequent to new investment by activist hedge funds. These results hold even for firms that experienced good quarters and consistently provided guidance in previous quarters. Since guidance has been shown to be beneficial to capital market participants in many ways, reduced guidance has meaningful market implications. Our findings highlight a negative and possible unintended consequence of activist hedge funds' investment in firms, which provides some counterbalance to the numerous positive consequences documented in the prior literature on hedge fund activism.     

Speculative capital and currency carry trades

In this paper, we study a two-country general equilibrium model with partially segmented financial markets, where hedge funds emerge endogenously. Empirically, we show that the hedge fund investment strategy predicted by our model, which we call the “risk-adjusted carry trade” strategy, explains more than 16% of the overall hedge fund index returns and more than 33% of the fixed income arbitrage sub-index returns. The flow of new money to hedge funds affects market interest rates, exchange rates, and both the hedge funds’ contemporaneous and expected future returns as predicted by the model.