Tag Archives: hedge fund
Fund of Hedge Funds Industry Shrinks But Still Strong
HedgeFund Intelligence’s Press Release from today states that the fund of funds industry shrank by $95 billion in the first half of 2009 but still manages $735 billion. This represents a decline of 11.4 percent in assets under management (AUM). Firms with more than $1 billion in AUM manage a combined $613 billion. According to HedgeFund Intelligence, 18 fund of […]
Hiring Slowly Picking Up at Hedge Fund Firms
While the debate rages on as to whether the economy is, indeed, displaying evidence of “green shoots,” numerous hedge fund firms appear to be taking matters into their own hands, repositioning themselves to benefit from any signs of improving investor sentiment. In particular, several firms have gone on recent hiring sprees in an attempt to lock in the best and […]
Bill Ackman and the State of Activist Investing, Part II
Despite a series of ongoing challenges, a variety of environmental effects have recently swung in the activists’ favor. First, as mentioned in my previous blog post, stock prices have taken a tremendous hit over the past year. Yet while the news media tend to tout the market’s recent resurgence, in reality the S&P 500 still remains more than 25% below […]
Pension Funds Side with Hedge Funds over EU
Reuters reports British pension funds are joining the battle against European Union’s proposed regulations on the hedge fund and alternative investment universe. The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and a director at Hermes, manager of the largest corporate scheme in Britain, said the rules could restrict investment choices and returns, further affecting the ability of pension funds to provide ample […]
Fund of Hedge Funds: Top 50
Philippa Aylmer, contributing editor to The Hedge Fund Journal, writes, “If the last decade could be described as the biggest credit party ever, then the end of 2008 brought the mother of all hangovers. The hedge fund industry took a beating along with much else in the financial services sector and funds of hedge funds felt their share of the […]
Bill Ackman and the Current State of Activist Hedge Funds, Part I
Bill Ackman, the forty-three-year-old founder of hedge fund firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, has had a rough go of late. Readers may recall that in 2007 he raised $2 billion from private investors in order to start a new hedge fund, Pershing Square IV. Employing a highly-leveraged mix of common stock and call options, Ackman invested the proceeds in […]
Leading Hedge Funds Making a Case for Gold
If the actions of some of the hedge fund industry’s leading managers is any indication, the attractiveness of gold as an asset class is on the rise. Several recent disclosures support such a conclusion. First, a recent survey performed by London-based researcher, Moonraker, found that 20 out of 22 hedge funds had added exposure to gold bullion to their portfolios. […]
Long/Short Mutual Funds
The market downturn last year has led mutual funds to begin testing new strategies to produce gains with lower risk. Many managers are trying to replicate the methods used by long/short hedge fund managers. By finding negatively correlated positions, fund managers are able to offset losses with gains from other assets in the portfolio. “130/30” Funds “130/30” funds […]
Emerging Markets Show True Colors During Global Slowdown
Emerging markets have seen explosive growth over the past decade, but with the recent contraction in the global economy, investors have a chance to look at real growth in individual markets. There is no doubt in my mind that the boom over the past couple of years in some countries were due to insatiable investors overbuying in whatever country the […]
Five Interesting Topics on the HedgeCo Q & A Board
The HedgeCo Q & A Board provides a forum for parties interested in the hedge fund industry to share information. Questions range from people trying to understand what makes hedge fund different from mutual funds to how to calculate complex statistics for portfolio performance. Here is a summary of five of the most popular questions. Every industry has its excesses. […]
