The Lyxor Hedge Fund Index was up +0.3% in March. 9 out of 11 Lyxor Indices ended the month in positive territory. The Lyxor LS Equity Long Bias Index (+2.3%), the Lyxor Fixed Income Arbitrage Index (+2.1%), and the Lyxor Special Situations Index (+1.4%) were the best performers.

Over two thirds of respondents of the Deutsche Bank annual Alternative Investment Survey invest in systematic strategies, including one in every two who plan to add to one or more quantitative sub-strategies in 2016. The largest investment consultants and pension funds are driving demand: 45% of these respondents plan to add to one or more systematic strategies, including quantitative equity market neutral, CTA, quantitative macro, quantitative equity and quantitative multi-strategy.

Readers of financial news may believe that ‘market corrections', or ‘shocks', or ‘five-sigma events' are more common than they used to be. Winton Capital Management look at the historical data for a number of financial markets and find that there is no evidence for increasing instability over the past 60 years.

Pierre Richert, Agrica CFO – mutual company dedicated to the agriculture sector – still does not invest in quant funds. He considers necessary to enhance transparency, performance attribution and especially regulation for this kind of funds.

Year to date, most alternative strategy performance are negative. Despite this challenging environment, CTAs have recorded an excellent start since the beginning of the year. According to Credit Suisse, CTAs posted a gain of 7.38% in late February 2016, the strongest performance of all alternative strategies...