Press Release – Cogent Consulting LLC today announced a free version of its HedgeTrak web-based broker review and evaluation service for hedge funds. HedgeTrak Lite enables hedge funds to properly value trading and research services provided by their brokerage firms, in anticipation of upcoming registration requirements, and to meet the competitive requirements demanded by clients.

HedgeTrak Lite is being released in the wake of a new generation of hedge funds being launched, demands for increased transparency around the use of research and the commission sharing arrangements used to pay for them, and the SEC’s proposed registration requirements for hedge funds. HedgeTrak Lite is based on the full version of Cogent’s industry leading solutions HedgeTrak and ResearchTrak which are used by money managers to evaluate services provided by more than 600 brokers and third party research providers worldwide. Cogent currently supports more than 100 client sites for firms managing in excess of $10 trillion.

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Tags: brokerage firms, hedge funds, money-managers, registration requirements, transparency

Sarasota Herald-Tribune – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has hundreds of pages of complicated rules governing investment advisers. But the agency — under fire for failing to stop New York hedge fund manager Bernard Madoff and his alleged $50 billion Ponzi case — has yet to impose even the most basic registration requirements on thousands of managers.

Until 2006, no hedge fund managers had to register with the SEC because of a rule making those managers with 15 or fewer investors exempt from the registration requirement. The SEC interpreted that rule in an odd way: A fund can be an investor.

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Tags: bernard madoff, hedge-fund-manager, hedge-fund-managers, investment advisers, investor, investors, registration requirement, registration requirements, sarasota herald tribune, securities-and-exchange, securities-and-exchange-commission