BrokerDealer.com blog update courtesy of FINAlternatives and originally published by Bloomberg LP

With the economy fully recovered from the financial crisis, Brokerdealers, involved in merger-arbitrage funds, are taking higher risks that are giving a much higher reward.

Merger-arbitrage traders didn’t have enough risk last year. This year, they got more than their share — and it’s not going away.

Companies announced $2.8 trillion of acquisitions, making 2014 the busiest year since before the financial crisis. Unprecedented amounts of money were spent in some industries, such as pharmaceuticals, and the transactions skewed larger than at any other time this century, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The slew of deals gave merger-arbitrage traders plenty to wager on, after last year’s scarcity of profit opportunities.

The explosion of megamergers brought volatility back to the investing strategy. The deals have been fraught with challenges, from regulatory scrutiny to the plummeting price of oil and the government’s attempt to deter tax inversions. Betting on them didn’t always pay off. More than $100 billion of potential takeovers unexpectedly blew up, like when drugmaker AbbVie Inc. called off its $55 billion purchase of Shire Plc. That burned merger-arbitrage funds, some of which will end the year at a loss even as stocks around the world surge.

“Drought conditions turned into basically flood conditions this year,” Louis Meyer, a New York-based event-driven analyst for Oscar Gruss & Son Inc., said in a phone interview. “Volatility is good, but it can be a double-edged sword. The positive aspect is you do have deals and the trend seems to be continuing. On the other hand, you’ve had real risk emerge and portfolio managers can no longer work on cruise control.”

For the original article from FinAlternative, click here.