ETF Securities is launching an exchange for ETFs that includes a consortium of over 15 global banks and asset managers (see Hedge Fund Review article). The structure allows each exchange member to be able to participate in trading, market making, and index replication activities while allowing counterparty risk to be spread among multiple exchange members. By concentrating liquidity in a single location, ETFs that would normally be unavailable due to low demand and liquidity issues, can now be created and used for more specific purposes, such as hedge fund replication, without the same trading and credit worries. Certainly an interesting idea during a time when many are concerned about those on the other side of the transaction, especially when specialized, low liquidity securities are involved. This may be one way to help reduce both counterparty and liquidity risk for those researching and implementing hedge fund replication products.

A new proposed product from Macroshares will allow investors to purchase Up and Down ETF shares based on the movement of the S&P / Case-Shiller Composite Index (see WSJ article). Unlike some other similar ETFs, the proposed shares will not be backed by the physical asset, such as you might see with gold ETFs. Therefore, there will not be a specific artificial commodity bull market as the physical asset is bought to cover the demand for new shares (too bad for all those homeowners underwater). Here, the cash is put into government securities to ensure liquidity, creating a kind of zero-sum game as cash is moved from one account to another as housing prices, and the Case-Shiller index, move up and down in price. Obviously, if there is more demand for one type of share, this side of the bet is likely to trade for more than its net asset value, while the other side will trade at a discount. The zero-sum game structure also places a cap on profits since a positive move of 100 percent all but clears out the down shares, causing an automatic liquidation of shares.

While such a vehicle will get some attention given its tie in to the Case-Shiller index, not to mention offering a new and more liquid method for taking on housing exposure, it is likely that only a select set of builders and highly mobile executives on the coast who are looking to hedge their risks will find much use for this specific ETF (see article for past failed housing products). Speculators, of course, will be looking for significant daily liquidity before stepping their toes into the water. Time, and a potential housing recovery (or further bust), is probably needed before people will be encourage to bet with or against housing in this manner.

New draft legislation in Congress is considering two key changes to the CDS market (see Bloomberg article). First, the bill would require that all trading in the over-the-counter derivatives market would have to be processed by a clearinghouse. Second, the draft legislation would ban CDS (Credit Default Swap) trading unless investors owned the underlying bonds. While the CME group, ICE, and other exchanges would certainly cheer the first move, the second could make any added revenue streams disappear.

Given the size of many of the outstanding bonds, the single-name CDS market would have a difficult time existing. At a time when many markets are frozen, eliminating speculation does not seem to be the best course of action for a market that is currently suffering from liquidity issues. Surely, other measures can be taken to curb speculation (such has been done in the futures market with position limits) without further limiting liquidity and price discovery.

While utilizing a clearinghouse would help to define prices in the OTC market (certainly not welcomed news for the investment banks), and seems to make perfect sense, doing so would require some level of standardization. Some worry that a "non-standard CDS" market will still exist, with the proposed legislation simply forcing such trading outside of the US. While this not only forfeits a potential revenue stream for some US exchanges, it may also give up the ability of US regulators to have a say on how this market operates, which also seems counterproductive to the spirit of the draft legislation.

While hedge fund returns have been taking a beating lately, the talk of the demise of hedge funds is probably a little over done and premature. While there has been $72.5 billion in outflows, this represents less than 4 percent of the average mid-year industry volumes (see Wealth Bulletin article). Also, while the industry has seen a number of funds close up shop, the numbers have "only" decreased from 7,601 to 7,299. As discussed in this blog a number of weeks ago (see previous post), the fallout seems to be impacting smaller funds more that larger, more established funds. In fact, many of the larger funds - which are either more diversified or have a star manager - are seen as being able to take advantage of the shifting resources and capital.

Even with fewer funds failing than originally expected (yes, these are just preliminary numbers), funds that stay in business will still find that they cannot operate as usual. For starters, funds will need to better match redemption rules with strategy. Some funds are illiquid by design based on the strategy being used. While trying to lock up funds until returns are realized (as with private equity) is probably not feasible, funds will need to better insure that redemption request rules take strategy into consideration. The use of leverage will also no doubt be reduced for many funds, which will also affect returns going forward. Finally, the popular 2-20 fee structure will also come under assault. Not only does the existing compensation structure seem excessive given recent performance (and future lower returns in the wake of lower leverage), fee concessions will be necessary as an incentive for agreeing to longer lock-up periods. In the end, expectations on both sides may need to be scaled down a little.

A recent WSJ article is highlighting once again the losses incurred at university endowments, especially those at Harvard. The Harvard endowment is reported to have lost "at least" 22 percent in the first four months of the school's recent fiscal year. This equates to approximately an $8 billion loss for the nearly $37 billion portfolio. Unfortunately, the pain may get worse as the current value does not appear to consider real estate or private equity investments, causing the university to start planning for a total decline of 30 percent for the fiscal year. While alternative investments have helped to shelter endowments at Harvard, Yale, and elsewhere from past sell-offs in the general market, this time the recent credit crisis has affect nearly every asset class. This has made the losses on relatively illiquid assets, such as real estate and private equity, potentially quite severe as portfolios are forced to sell such assets at deep discounts. Private equity investments with Harvard are reported to only be receiving bids of 50 cents on the dollar. Diversification and investing in alternative investments has its benefits, but it can also introduce new risk to manage, such as liquidity risk. Certainly a lesson we all need to be taught, even if we have to learn it the hard way.

Option trading in the United States has decreased 23 percent compared to October (see Bloomberg article). During market moves, it would normally seem to make sense that market moves might cause increased option activity as investors look to protect their equity investments, but rapid sell-offs (and subsequent rallies) have resulted in higher volatility, driving option premiums higher. While higher option premiums may be prohibiting some traders from being able to efficiently use options for hedging, the root cause may be with the equity trading itself. Regardless of its impact on option premiums, the increased trading has reduced the number of equity trades for those who typically hedge such positions, thereby reducing the need for hedging with options. As hedge funds get smaller, their impact on trading (currently about one-third of all trading) will also decrease, reducing volume, and putting further pressure on liquidity. As traders search for a market bottom, they may be misleading themselves. We could simply be looking at a type of mean reversion to a pre-hedge-fund-explosion market with regard to asset prices and trading volumes. Current levels may be less about bottom building, and more about new market norms. Of course, this means reversion from the mean could take us into seemingly scary territory in the near future as the market recalibrates to a new post-irrational-exuberance world.

There is an article in the Times Online asking the question of why we are not hearing about more hedge fund failures as the current credit crisis has intensified over the last few weeks. The author believes the reason is that the current problems are due less to a credit crisis problem and more to an ownership problem - the real problem is the divergence between listed companies and their dispersed shareholders. While hedge funds have done poorly, and some will no doubt fail as a result of the current market issues, the numbers to date are not much different than normal attrition in the industry. Since hedge funds are private partnerships, it is believe that they will therefore continue to not have the same ownership problems that are plaguing the market.

Of course, besides ownership differences, hedge funds also have some other unique attributes. For one, hedge funds can keep their investors from withdrawing money, unlike listed companies. A run on the fund is less likely, at least right after a major event, unlike shareholders of listed companies who can sell their shares in mass right now. Also, hedge funds do not have to publicly mark-to-market all their assets and disclose all their underwater positions, allowing them to hold positions that may currently have irrational prices. Many (not all) also seem to take hedging and risk management into consideration, or at least are able to use their flexibility to respond to the market a little quicker. Some hedge funds will no doubt fail as a result of the current issues in the market, but I suspect that poor risk management, poor decisions, over-leverage, greed, stupidity from numerous stakeholders, and the inability to ride out the storm (due to mark-to-market or other liquidity issues) have more to do with recent failures than ownership issues.

As reported in a recent Barron's article, how much money investors get back from auction-rate securities depends on who originally issued the securities. Auction-rate securities are debt that matures in 30 year or more, sometimes in perpetuity. The recent increase in the number sellers compared to buyers has caused some problems in the market, with some issuers running for the door. How the security was initially issued, and for what purpose, may impact how fast you are able to redeem the security.

The investors of auction-rate securities sold by a municipality or a closed-end taxable mutual fund have already received their money or will be receiving it soon. Investors in closed-end tax-free municipal-bond funds will also likely receive their money, but may have to wait a little longer. Not surprisingly, the investors that purchased auction-rate securities sold by a CDO or student-loan trust will not get their money back for some time, up to many years. Many auction-rate security holders have no idea what the CDOs own since the information is not disclosed. Estimates have about $20 billion of CDO auction-rate securities that are failing to be sold in auction and therefore illiquid. Many of these securities will not be redeemed, and will essentially stay outstanding until the CDO either collapses, or the investment within the CDO mature - in some cases, many years out.

For student loans, many loans are financed by selling them into a trust, and the trust then sells medium and long-term debt, some of which are auction-rate securities. For the trust, there are not many refinancing options given that student-loan financing costs have gone up quickly. Initial rates from some failed auctions were 10% or higher. To prevent problems, some trust have a mechanism that prevents the average rate from going high enough so as to push a trust into default. Some student-loan based auction-rate securities are therefore offering 0% rates to investors, with average rates of 3%. With such low rates, this doesn't encourage student-loan trusts to fix the liquidity problems anytime soon.

Unfortunately, auction-rate securities are probably just one example of what is no doubt becoming a much larger problem. As investment companies continue to deal with their own credit issues, expect more of the fixes, and consequences, to roll down hill.

As recently reported in a Bloomberg article and elsewhere, the TED spread has been shrinking, and a number of analysts are stating this as evidence that the economy is getting back on firmer footing. While the spread does get mentioned when it starts spiking, and correcting, it is not as widely followed as some of the other more popular indicators.

In short, the TED spread is the difference between the yield on 3-month Treasury bill interest rates and the 3-month Libor. It was originally the spread between the 3-month Treasury contract and the 3-month Eurodollar contract represented by Libor before the CME quit offering T-bill futures contracts - thus giving the name TED (Treasury - Eurodollar) spread. The current quote is around 0.8. The normal range is usually between 0.1% and 0.5%. The spread has been over 2% on three different occasions in the last year, and has been elevated above it normal range since August of last year. The combination of investors looking for the safety of Treasuries (driving prices up and yields down), while incurring higher borrowing costs due to credit issues (driving 3 month Libor yields up), have increased the spread over the last year.

But now the spread is decreasing. Does this imply that all is clear in the economy? Maybe, but maybe not. A decreasing spread is a sign that liquidity is increasing, reflecting at least in part the success of the recent unconventional Federal Reserve actions to increase liquidity. The overnight Libor rate has dropped to around 2.11%, the lowest value in three and a half years. The 3-month rate has also declined to around 2.66%. Yet lenders still continue to hold cash, given that the Libor-OIS spread, the spread between the 3-month loans and the overnight indexed swap rate, is still around 0.66%, compared to an average rate of about 0.11%.

In fact, when you dig deeper, as discussed at the WSJ marketbeat blog, the recent narrowing of the TED spread is due mainly to an increase in T-bill yields which have risen by about 1.25% in the last few months. This has had a bigger impact than a drop in Libor, which has only fallen about 0.25% in the last month. As a result, traders are not as impressed, at least not quite yet. If the situation was reversed, where Libor was falling by 1.25%, this would imply that the liquidity issue and credit problems were abating, but this is not yet being indicated by the action in Libor. Instead, the T-bill supply is above average, putting pressure on prices and raising the yields, thereby lowering the spread. Things are improving, but it may still be too early to assume the credit and liquidity problems are behind us.