relative to traditional financial market indices.
James Alpha Advisors, LLC is the investment manager of the James Alpha Macro Portfolio. Until November 30, 2015, Armored Wolf, LLC served as the investment manager, however since then the Armored Wolf team has joined James Alpha Advisors to continue management of the Fund.
The portfolio management team is lead by Akos Beleznay. Mr. Beleznay serves as Chief Investment Officer for James Alpha Advisors and is a member of the James Alpha Investment Committee and responsible for manager research and asset allocation amongst the James Alpha suite of managers and funds. Mr. Beleznay has been successfully allocating capital to hedge funds for over 13 years. Prior to joining James Alpha, he was the Chief Investment Officer at Riverside, the asset management arm of HFR (Hedge Fund Research, Inc.), managing over $1 billion of fund-of-hedge-fund products. Before Riverside, Mr. Beleznay served as the Chief Investment Officer at Commerce Asset Management and CSG Asset Management with responsibility for managing funds-of-hedge-funds and a hedge fund index replication product. He also served as the Director of Consulting Research for Equitas Capital Advisors, LLC from 2002 to 2010 and the Chief Investment Officer of Equitas Evergreen Fund LP, a fund of hedge funds with $300 million in assets, from 2003 to 2010.
The Portfolio seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing all or substantially all of its assets in the following market sectors: commodities, global inflation-linked bonds, event-linked securities, global equities, emerging market bonds, emerging market currencies, high-yield bonds and global macro. The Manager allocates the Portfolio’s assets across the sectors based on the Manager’s forecasted return and risk characteristics for each sector. The Manager utilizes a long/short strategy¹ across each sector seeking alpha generation. Dynamic sector allocation processes adjust for changing market conditions.
¹A long/short strategy is an investing strategy of taking long positions in stocks that are expected to appreciate and short positions in stocks that are expected to decline. A long/short strategy seeks to minimize market exposure, while profiting from stock gains in the long positions and price declines in the short positions. Although this may not always be the case, the strategy would be profitable on a net basis as long as the long positions generate more profit than the short positions, or the other way around.
There is no assurance that the portfolio will achieve its investment objective. Exposure to the commodities markets may subject the Portfolio to greater volatility. There is a risk that issuers and counterparties will not make payments on securities and other investments held by the Fund, resulting in losses to the Fund. Currency strategies will subject the Fund to currency trading risks that include market risk, credit risk and country risk. Derivative instruments involve risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional investments.
Securities issued by foreign companies and governments located in developing countries may be affected more negatively by inflation, devaluation of their currencies, higher transaction costs, adverse political developments and lack of timely information than those in developed countries. Event-linked securities may at any given time be illiquid, thus, the sale of these investments may be made at substantial discounts, delayed or impossible. The Fund may invest in high yield securities, also known as “junk bonds.” High yield securities provide greater income and opportunity for gain, but entail greater risk of loss of principal. The Portfolio may invest in mortgage- and asset-backed securities that are subject to prepayment or call risk. Mutual funds involve risk, including possible loss of principal.