Student Hedge Fund | Fs Associates

WELCOME

FS Associates is the student Hedge Fund of Frankfurt School, managing virtual funds in a manner typically observed in the industry. We trade a wide range of markets and financial products in order to optimally arrange our portfolio and put our strategies into practice.
Our target is to create solid returns with optimized risk throughout any market phase.

ABOUT US

FS Associates analyzes global equity markets under the aspect of fundamental, quantitative and technical analysis in order to find attractive investment opportunities. Our strategies are only limited by our imagination, which is why we constantly look out for developments in the markets which show promising patterns. We backtest our ideas in order to understand whether they also hold in real market environments and constantly seek to improve our strategies.

Our team is carefully selected and combines valuable experience, the willingness to work hard and unconditional commitment to excellence.

FS HONOR CODE

The Frankfurt School Honor Code consists of the values tolerance, respect, responsibility, trust, engagement and cooperation. For us, these values are essential for a productive working environment and we believe that these values are the fundament of any great society. For this reason, we live the FS Honor Code at every occasion.

MERITOCRACY

At FS Associates, the best idea wins. In order to find out which idea is after all the best one, we delve into meaningful disagreement. Ray Dalio, a very successful hedge fund manager who we look up to is the source of our attention to the importance of meaningful disagreement when it comes to trying to find the truth.

EFFORT

We work hard to achieve our goals. In our point of view there is no greater disappointment than to find out that we didn’t achieve our goals because we didn’t work hard enough. For that reason, we test our limits in order to reach our targets.

EXCELLENCE

We have an explicit commitment to excellence, both professionally and personally. Our members strive for excellent results in any situation they encounter. For us, a culture of excellence means that every member of our organization gives his or her best.

PROGRESS

We are addicted to the process of getting better. By continuously learning and gaining valuable experience and insights we seek to become experts at what we do. We strongly believe in the power of knowledge and seek to gather as much knowledge as possible.

INVESTMENT

APPROACH

FS Associates manages virtual funds designated for use in an actively managed long-short portfolio. After gaining valuable experiences last year in equity, currency and commodity markets, we have decided to lay our focus on equities and commodities. We only invest in what we fully understand and believe that we can achieve the largest edge in these markets.

Our short positions focus on companies with deteriorating asset quality or which operate in structurally declining markets. Our long positions are also carefully selected companies with competitive advantages in promising sectors and high balance sheet quality. For both long and short expoures, we also assess the valuation relative to peers and own history.

Our long-short approach applies to mid- and long-term time frames, with the targeted time horizon being several months up to years. We work with a variety of financial instruments, such as stocks, single stock derivatives and ETF's.

We also look out for special situations trading opportunities. These can also be held as strategic positions for weeks or months, until mispricing is exploited.

Further, we analyze macro data to assess risks and enhance data-driven decision-making regarding net exposure and approriate commodity hedges. Please find our most recent macro report about US equities below:

MACRO REPORT S&P 500