Nell Mackenzie

Global hedge funds sold European stocks for the second straight week in a row with a focus on the region's financial, materials, energy and industrial companies, Goldman Sachs data for the week ending March 21 showed.

Hedge funds have crowded into debt-fuelled bets on UK government bonds, increasing the potential for instability in the gilts market, a benchmark for borrowing costs in Britain including mortgages, investors and hedge fund sources say.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said on Monday it has fined Crispin Odey, founder of the now defunct hedge fund Odey Asset Management, 1.8 million pounds ($2.3 million), and banned him from the financial services industry for a lack of integrity.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a U.S. hedge fund permission to buy securities in Russian companies from certain foreign stakeholders and authorised their future sale to two Russian funds, a presidential decree showed on Monday.

Wall Street futures looked to open lower on Monday, declining alongside world stocks as building deflationary pressure in China added to growth worries from a lacklustre U.S. economy and an escalating global trade war.

Roughly a quarter of investors surveyed by IG Prime are looking to change which hedge funds invest their money, citing reasons including riskiness, poor performance and size, the prime brokerage firm said in a report on Thursday.

Hedge funds exited U.S. tech and media stocks in the two weeks to February 21 at the fastest pace in six months, according to Goldman Sachs, just as Nvidia , one of the biggest tech firms by market capitalisation, readies to report earnings.

Wall Street stocks could be facing a correction because of ructions in the options market, Goldman Sachs specialist Scott Rubner said in a Thursday note seen by Reuters on Friday.

Investors are choosing hedge funds rather than re-upping their private equity investments after closed deals, as deal making in recent years has dried up, said BNP Paribas.

Saba Capital Management has added more UK investment trusts to its activist campaign and plans to further shake up the sector, the hedge fund's founder Boaz Weinstein told the LSE Alternative Investments Conference on Monday.