Key Takeaways
- • Aspect Capital's Aspect Systematic Global Macro (ASGM) fund deployed 30 trading models across 14 investment themes to generate positive returns in 2020 despite pandemic-driven market turbulence, demonstrating resilience across multiple market environments.
- • The ASGM fund employs a systematic relative value approach targeting shorter-horizon alpha opportunities in liquid financial futures and forwards markets, with exposure to global fixed income, stock indices, currency, and volatility strategies.
- • Co-portfolio managers Asif Noor and Anoosh Lachin, who co-founded Auriel Capital Management in 2004 before joining Aspect in 2016, lead the fund's quantitative research and execution.
- • Aspect Capital, founded in 1997 by AHL alumni, manages over $9 billion in quantitative investment strategies across London, positioning itself to capitalize on differing fiscal and monetary policy responses and varying recovery speeds across global markets.
- • The fund targets steady returns of 4–6% above cash by exploiting relative value opportunities in compressed yield environments and potentially stretched equity valuations, benefiting from systematic macro dislocations.
Summary
Aspect Capital, the London-based systematic investment manager founded in 1997, is leveraging its quantitative global macro strategy to navigate post-pandemic market conditions characterized by uneven recovery speeds and persistent policy divergence. With over $9 billion in assets under management, the firm's data-driven approach positions it to capitalize on both near-term market dislocations and medium-term structural trends emerging from varying fiscal and monetary responses to the pandemic crisis.
The Aspect Systematic Global Macro (ASGM) fund, which demonstrated resilience by posting positive returns across multiple market environments during 2020's turbulent conditions, operates through a diversified architecture of 30 trading models organized across 14 investment themes. The fund employs a systematic relative value methodology targeting shorter-horizon alpha opportunities in highly liquid derivatives markets, with specific focus on global fixed income, equity indices, currency pairs, and volatility instruments. This diversification across asset classes and models appears central to the fund's ability to generate consistent returns regardless of directional market movements.
The ASGM fund is co-managed by Asif Noor and Anoosh Lachin, experienced practitioners who previously co-founded Auriel Capital Management in 2004 before joining Aspect in 2016, bringing seasoned expertise in systematic macro trading. Aspect's current environment analysis indicates favorable conditions for relative value strategies, particularly given compressed yields in fixed income markets and potentially stretched equity valuations. The firm explicitly targets returns in the 4–6% range above cash, positioning the strategy as an income-generating solution amid a landscape of depressed yields. As fiscal and monetary policy effects continue unfolding globally, Aspect believes the divergent recovery trajectories across major economies will create persistent opportunities for systematic macro strategies focused on capturing relative dislocations and mean reversion dynamics.
The Aspect Systematic Global Macro (ASGM) fund, which demonstrated resilience by posting positive returns across multiple market environments during 2020's turbulent conditions, operates through a diversified architecture of 30 trading models organized across 14 investment themes. The fund employs a systematic relative value methodology targeting shorter-horizon alpha opportunities in highly liquid derivatives markets, with specific focus on global fixed income, equity indices, currency pairs, and volatility instruments. This diversification across asset classes and models appears central to the fund's ability to generate consistent returns regardless of directional market movements.
The ASGM fund is co-managed by Asif Noor and Anoosh Lachin, experienced practitioners who previously co-founded Auriel Capital Management in 2004 before joining Aspect in 2016, bringing seasoned expertise in systematic macro trading. Aspect's current environment analysis indicates favorable conditions for relative value strategies, particularly given compressed yields in fixed income markets and potentially stretched equity valuations. The firm explicitly targets returns in the 4–6% range above cash, positioning the strategy as an income-generating solution amid a landscape of depressed yields. As fiscal and monetary policy effects continue unfolding globally, Aspect believes the divergent recovery trajectories across major economies will create persistent opportunities for systematic macro strategies focused on capturing relative dislocations and mean reversion dynamics.
Go deeper than the headline
Research every firm in this story, track the ones that matter and get the daily briefing — free for 7 days.