Forbes – It’s been foul weather for hedge-heads. Redemptions are rampant, performance is drooping, the Securities and Exchange Commission briefly banned short-selling, and Congress summoned them to do some ‘splaining.

But the really bad stuff is yet to come. Hedge funds are coming under attack from popular culture. In fact, the two uber-villains of Candace Bushnell’s new book, One Fifth Avenue, are hedge-heads.

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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.

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