Today the Office of Financial Research (OFR) unveiled its new Hedge Fund Monitor, an interactive data visualization tool that makes aggregated data on hedge fund activities from several sources more accessible through one tool. The Hedge Fund Monitor is available for public use, and the data are available for download via an application programming interface (API).
Hedge funds play a prominent role in the global financial marketplace. They add depth and breadth to capital markets and perform arbitrage that reduces mispricing across similar securities and instruments. In addition, they take risks that otherwise would have remained on the balance sheets of other financial institutions, thereby providing an important source of risk transfer and diversification. At the same time, some of their activities include risks, such as high leverage or reliance on short-term funding, and hedge funds may pull back from those activities at inopportune times.
“The Hedge Fund Monitor reflects the OFR’s commitment to developing data products that provide policymakers and the public comprehensive, reliable, and accessible data about segments of the financial system,” said James Martin, Acting Director of the OFR.
The monitor does not reveal entity-level confidential information about hedge fund advisers or the funds that they manage. It includes only aggregated data about private funds, including hedge funds and their advisers.
The Hedge Fund Monitor includes data from four sources:
- The Securities and Exchange Commission Form Private Fund (Form PF) filings.
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commitments of Traders reports, which provide data on aggregate holdings of futures and options positions across a number of asset classes.
- The Federal Reserve Board’s Senior Credit Officer Opinion Survey, which includes information about the availability and terms of credit in securities financing and over-the-counter derivatives markets.
- Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) aggregated sponsored repo data. These data include secured borrowing transactions in which a dealer that is a FICC member sponsors non-dealer counterparties (e.g., hedge funds) onto FICC’s cleared repurchase agreement (repo) platform.
“The OFR Hedge Fund Monitor continues to fulfill the OFR’s mission of better informing the public and policymakers on significant parts of the U.S. financial system,” Martin said.
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The OFR helps promote financial stability by looking across the financial system to measure and analyze risks, perform essential research, and collect and standardize financial data principally to support the Financial Stability Oversight Council and its member agencies. In addition, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires the OFR to analyze threats to the financial stability of the United States each year and provide a report to Congress with its key findings.
