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Chicago Tribune – Strong returns are a mixed blessing this year for investment funds that specialize in trading futures contracts.
While the stock market plunged about 35 percent, managed futures funds posted annual returns of about 16 percent, according to the Credit Suisse Tremont Hedge Fund Index.
That makes them one of the few havens for investors at a time when pensions, retirement savings and even prominent local hedge funds such as Citadel Investment Group and Magnetar Capital LLC have recorded big losses.
But the success of managed futures has also left them vulnerable to client withdrawals. Because market turmoil froze the assets in many portfolios, some institutional and individual investors are pulling money from managed futures.
Tacoma News Tribune – It was a year of disillusionment, betrayal and excruciating pain for investors.
Wall Street got investing so wrong that the financial system needed an emergency $700 billion transfusion of taxpayer money to avoid collapse, and investors lost trillions of dollars of their life’s savings.
For the regular person with a 401(k), it didn’t help much if they obeyed the lessons of sound investing. Although investors are told that diverse mutual fund choices will help them get through a stock market downturn, the practice didn’t save them from a miserable 2008.
As the stock market plunged more than 50 percent from its October 2007 high, everything but U.S. Treasury bonds suffered drastic losses – real estate, commodities, U.S. stocks, international stocks and even hedge funds, municipal bonds and corporate bonds. As investors panicked and headed for the exits, strong and weak investments were sold. Virtually nothing was immune.
“All 10 sectors within the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell, from a 22 percent slump for consumer staples to a 74 percent thrashing for the financials,” said Standard & Poor’s chief investment strategist Sam Stovall.
CNBC – More than four years ago, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that if he started any hedge fund, it would be a sports gambling hedge fund.
Cuban quickly noted that it was merely a fantasy: as an owner, he wouldn’t be allowed to bet. But I can’t stop thinking about the fact that that idea probably would have yielded among the best percentage returns of any hedge fund this year.
The billionaire’s rationalization started with the fact that sportsbooks make money off people who expect to lose — but for the smart gambler, the sports book opportunity could actually be better than the stock market.
