According to a number of reports, one of the Cayman Islands\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 leading financial products, hedge funds, is not as lucrative as many have supposed, but its popularity remains at an all time high.<\/p>\n
Noted for the risky and exotic nature of their investments, hedge funds actually performed worse last year than the much more conservative Standard & Poor\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s 500 Index, which tracks the biggest corporations listed on the New York Stock Exchange. David Marchant, the editor of OffshoreAlert, a leading newsletter on the ins and outs of in the world of offshore finance, reported on this statistic.<\/p>\n
Hedge funds returned some 13 percent in 2006, compared with the 15.8 percent return of the S&P 500 Index, according to industry tracker Hedge Fund research, Inc., of Chicago.<\/p>\n