Markets Media News – The New Year is likely to see several important shifts in alternative investing, according to Don Steinbrugge, managing partner of Agecroft Partners, a global consulting and third-party marketing firm for hedge funds.

Steinbrugge said during the fourth quarter of 2008, investor demand started to shift toward market neutral strategies, as well as toward strategies that used little leverage and provided investors with transparency and liquidity. That shift will likely continue throughout 2009, he said.

Short-biased funds, which have always been a small percentage of the marketplace, surged ahead in 2008, delivering double-digit returns and capturing a larger market share of alternative investments. Steinbrugge said investors are likely to continue to invest in short-biased funds, but their growth will be at a slower pace than last year.

Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) are likely to see a lot of demand as well, as they also delivered double-digit returns last year and proved they are not correlated with other hedge fund strategies. Steinbrugge said, however, that does not mean traditional long-short equity funds are on their way out.

"Long-short equity funds have actually done pretty well in comparison to the S&P 500," Steinbrugge said. "I don’t think you’ll see a huge shift out of long-short equity."

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