Globe and Mail – Goodwood Inc., a value-oriented manager, briefed investors Thursday on a dismal September. There’s a lot of these letters going out from hedge fund managers. Goodwood’s funds were down 16 per cent last month, bringing the year-to-date loss to 32 per cent. Year-to-date, the S&P/TSX benchmark is down 13 per cent.

Goodwood executives Peter Puccetti and Cam MacDonald used their September letter to unitholders to explain the madness of markets, and plead for patience and perspective. They certainly deserve a hearing. But investors who bought into hedge funds on the basis of absolute returns – making money in good markets and bad – are going to struggle with these pleas.

“We have seen many well-known investment management operations badly harmed as a result of their leverage exacerbating the effects of the ongoing credit crunch and deleveraging we are currently living through,” said Goodwood’s team.

Read Complete Article

Tags: angela-merkel, asia-pacific, codex, fifth-avenue, good-managers, housing-market, inception, jail-time, mantra, medallion, newcastle, rjr-nabisco, seligman, squeeze, stage-fund

istockAnalyst.com- Investors face something of a new landscape in financial markets this week after tumbling oil and food prices eased immediate concerns about inflation, potentially freeing central banks to fight slow economic growth.

The focus, however, will also be on some old stalwarts – a continuing stream of corporate earnings reports and the U.S. employment report for July, a monthly bellwether for the health of the American economy.

The past two weeks have seen major declines on commodity markets, which until recently were booming. They had provided investors with gains but also headaches because of the impact of higher prices on companies and economies.

That has now turned around. Since hitting a record above $147 a barrel on July 11, oil has fallen 15 percent.

Food prices have seen similar moves. Wheat is down 18 percent in the past month while corn has lost 25 percent.

From a broad investor perspective, this can be good news, assuming it continues.

Read Complete Article

Tags: 1-billion, carnage, codex, downfall, electrical-engineering, first-avenue, international-assets, livestock, london-reuters, medallion, retirement, runup, sole-concern, yen

CNNMoney.com- An equity investors study by Greenwich Associates showed trading volume generated by hedge funds surpassed mutual funds last year and now ranks second only to traditional asset-management shops.

The financial-consulting firm said the influence of hedge funds as a way of generating equity trading has helped Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) and other firms " solidify" their standing as top U.S. brokers in terms of market share.

"Although the second half of 2007 was something of a wild ride, hedge-fund performance for the year was relatively strong, and from a U.S. equity trading perspective, hedge funds were extremely active," said Greenwich consultant John Feng.

Read Complete Article

Tags: bad-news, codex, commitments, government-bond-index, heap, morgan-freeman, newcastle, nextel, pension-funds, pergam-finance