Societe Generale
Following on from an improvement in February and a strong March, April has been another positive month for CTAs, according to the latest data by Societe Generale (SG) CTA indices. The SG CTA Index was up 2.76% in April, bringing it firmly into positive territory for 2019 year–to–date, to up 4.74%. The strong performance has […]
Weeks after revealing plans to cut 1,600 jobs, largely in its corporate and investment bank, and days after revealing a 26% drop in first quarter revenues, Societe Generale has named a new head of fixed income and currencies. Sylvain Cartier has been named as head of FIC, he will be based in Paris and will […]
Societe Generale has revealed that on April 18 its subsidiary, Societe Generale SFH, issued €100 million of covered bonds as a security token (OFH), directly registered on the Ethereum blockchain. The OFH tokens have been rated Aaa / AAA by Moody’s and Fitch and have been fully subscribed by Societe Generale. This operation is the […]
2018 saw CTAs cap a generally poor decade of performance with a particularly bad year of losses. Given this, Galen Stops takes a look at whether the rationale for investors including CTA strategies in their portfolio is still valid. Post financial crisis, CTAs have struggled to produce returns, with only 2010 and 2014 standing out […]
The SG CTA Index was up by 0.42%, whilst the SG Trend Index was up by 0.81%. Short term strategies struggled and underperformed other strategies, with the SG STTI down by 1.19% for the month. The SG Trend Indicator attributed February’s positive results to gains in currencies and a selection of commodity markets, as well as trends in interest rate markets. Long positions in bond markets reverted slightly, leading to small losses, whilst positions in equity markets began to adapt to the renewed upward trend. “We’ve seen an uptick of performance in February, and we maintain the benefits CTA strategies can have in diversified portfolios. It will be interesting to observe if CTAs can continue this upward trend as we look towards March and the rest of the year,” says Tom Wrobel, director of alternative investments consulting at Societe Generale Prime Services.
Following recent news of planned staff cuts at Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking (SG CIB), Profit & Loss understands that at least three senior FX staff have left the French bank. Tom Gillie, managing director, global head of FX trading, and Keith Hill, global co-head of e-FX sales at SG CIB, are among the early cuts to the FX team. Richard Ware, a senior sales/trader has also reportedly left. Sources say additional cuts were made to the FX team, but roles and numbers could not be determined by time of going to press. These sources add that the US team will also be impacted, but that the cuts have not yet been announced. SG declines to comment.
Following an initial positive run in the first few days of the year, all CTAs in the Societe Generale (SG) Indices were in negative territory by the end of January. The SG Trend Index was down 3.25% and the SG Short-Term Traders Index was down 1.71%. The SG CTA Index returned -1.99% despite being helped slightly by three non-trend following managers’ positive performances during the month.The SG Trend Indicator attributed losses to equity markets and currencies. They were positioned short in risk assets, hence equity markets’ reversal and gains in one of their best Januarys ever, contributed to losses of 3.91% at the portfolio level.
Following a difficult October, CTAs continued to face challenges in November as the SG CTA Index was down 1.09% and the SG Trend Index was down 1.75%. Year-to-date, the SG CTA Index is down 7.18%.
However, the SG Trend Indicator outperformed the Trend Index as it was up 2.51%. This was driven by gains in commodity markets especially from short positions in the energy sector.
Apart from the uplift in commodities, trend following strategies struggled in other sectors with losses in currencies and equities. There were strong reversals against established trends in particular in Australian and New Zealand dollar. Furthermore, trends in bond markets continued to be mixed, as the new upward momentum brought the recent downward trend to an end.
All of Societe Generale’s (SG) CTA indices were down in October and are now in negative territory year-to-date.
The SG CTA Index was down 2.79% and the SG Trend Index was down 4.29%. The short-term and quant macro strategies fared considerably better as the SG STTI Index was down marginally by 0.40%.
Continuing from September’s dip, losses were driven primarily by trend-following strategies, with losses in commodities, equities and bonds.
Commodities were a particular drag on results, with the upwards trend reversing and the oil market losing 1.58%. A number of long equity market positions also reverted, while bond markets rallied against the developing downwards trend, leading to losses in many of these markets.
Societe Generale (SG) plans to deploy Duco’s enterprise software as a service (SaaS) platform across its business as one of its primary reconciliation and data control systems.
SG will use Duco’s platform to automate key reconciliation processes across all business areas, dramatically improving efficiency compared to legacy systems and spreadsheet-based processes.
Estelle Letribot, global head of reconciliation post-trade in SG global banking and investor solutions, says: “Innovation and digital transformation are core to Societe Generale’s strategy, both internally and for our clients. By working with Duco, we have an opportunity to reinvent our operations, introducing agility, automation and machine learning in a function that has traditionally proved very expensive and time consuming.”
