[  This is a personal non-profit online research library and is solely used by Scott Bryan Hill.  Some of the links on this page lead to outside resources and the presence of these links should not be taken as an endorsement.  ]

Hedge Fund Research:  (HFR) is a research firm specializing in the aggregation, dissemination and analysis of alternative investment information.

Hedge Week:  Hedgeweek provides industry-specific news distribution and education services within the European hedge fund sector via its website and its suite of four editorial products, all delivered exclusively online, direct-to-desktop to over 20,000 registered readers.

MarHedge:  MARHedge is the leading hedge fund information source. MARHedge includes editorial bureaus around the world serving a bi-weekly print publication, a real-time news web site, and access to the leading fund manager performance directory, via a strategic partnership with The Barclay Group.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

( Symbol Guide )

 [ A ]

A Reality Check on Hedge Funds Returns, Nolke Posthuma and Pieter-Jelle Van Der Sluis, ABP Investments, July 8, 2003.  “In this article we examine the backfill bias or instant history bias for hedge funds using additional information from the Tass database. This is information about the exact date a hedge fund starts reporting to Tass. Using this information we are able to reveal the length of the instant histories. We find these to be just over 3 years on average. This number is far greater than previously documented. More than half of the recorded returns in the database are backfilled. The magnitude of the overall backfill bias is about 4 percent per annum on average.”  (Hedge Funds (Performance))

A Wider Door to Hedging, With Fees Attached, Geraldine Fabrikant, The New York Times, November 30, 2003.  “Wall Street firms are eagerly marketing hedge funds to investors of more moderate wealth, on the theory that many people who have been burned in the stock market are hungry for strategies that can profit even if the market declines.  Rather than selling individual funds, many firms are focusing on "funds of hedge funds" - packages that typically contain 15 or more individual funds. But investors should read the fine print carefully, experts say, because these investments do not come cheap and can have layers of fees.  Hedge funds are largely unregulated investment pools that can take short positions and use leverage. Once available only to multimillionaires, they are now edging closer to the mass market.”  (Hedge Funds (Performance))

After Doing Its Homework, a College Puts Its Money Into Hedge Funds, Jenny Anderson, The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2006.  “The College of Wooster is a small, liberal arts college in Ohio whose graduates have historically gravitated toward careers as Presbyterian ministers, music teachers or college professors, not traditionally high-paid professions.  Yet its endowment is on a roll. Nearly 80 percent of the endowment's assets are invested in hedge funds — making Wooster among the endowments with the largest exposure to hedge funds, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers.  Still, that strategy has brought it rich rewards: Its endowment has climbed to $250 million today, from $89 million in 1990.”  (Hedge Funds)

Amid Amaranth's Crisis, Other Players Profited, Ann Davis, Gregory Zuckerman and Henny Sender, The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2006.  “When Amaranth LLC collapsed in the fall, after swiftly losing more than $6 billion, it was the biggest hedge-fund failure ever. Now as investors slowly get back what's left of their money, it's becoming clear the debacle also had some big winners: other players in the high-stakes energy market who profited from a crippled rival's travails.  The final agonies of Amaranth, described by dozens of people close to the roller-coaster negotiations about its fate, began on Friday, Sept. 15. Bleeding cash and facing a Monday demand for money it didn't have, Amaranth scrambled through an intense weekend to find someone who would take over losing energy investments for a price.”  (Hedge Funds)

Are Hedge Funds and Brokers Too Interlocked? Some Wonder, Henry Sender and Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2003.  “Last month, Merrill Lynch & Co. hosted three days of meetings for hedge-fund managers and potential investors at the posh Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., and picked up the tab for all attendees. The event was part of the matchmaking service that securities firms provide to hedge funds. They do so in the hope that in return for an introduction to potential investors, the hedge funds will give them the first call when it comes to the lucrative business of financing their trading positions and lending them securities, among other services.”  (Hedge Funds)

As Lenders, Hedge Funds Draw Insider Scrutiny, Jenny Anderson, The New York Times, October 16, 2006.  “In early March, executives from Movie Gallery, a big movie rental chain, held a private conference call for their lenders to talk about how disastrous 2005 had been for the company. A string of Hollywood flops had kept customers away. More people were recording movies from television instead of renting them from a store. The executives said they needed more time to fix the problems, which included more than $1 billion in debt.  Most of the roughly 200 lenders were not bankers, but hedge funds. And what they heard was supposed to be confidential: it was inside information, as valuable to investors as a tip about an imminent takeover.”  (Hedge Funds (Inside Information))

 [ B ]

Bayou Troubles Cast Shadow on Consultancy, Riva D. Atlas, The New York Times, August 31, 2005.  “The apparent collapse of the Bayou Group, the Connecticut hedge fund manager, has attracted scrutiny to the Hennessee Group, one of the oldest consultants in the hedge fund business.  Hennessee raised tens of millions of dollars for Bayou, people in the hedge fund business said." (Hedge Funds (Bayou Story) | Consultants | Hedge of Hedge Funds)

 [ C ]

Chicago Art Institute's Hedge Fund Loss Paints Cautionary Portrait For Investors, Lanthe Jeanne Douglas, Thomas M. Burton, and Carrick Mollenkamp, The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2002.  “On a summer afternoon in 2000, Conrad Seghers made his pitch to the financial overseers of the Art Institute of Chicago.  The biologist-turned-day trader, then 32 years old, told the business luminaries gathered in the museum’s boardroom that hedge funds run by his fledging Dallas investment firm could both expand the venerable museum’s wealth and protect it from stock market swings.” (Hedge Fund)

Connect the Dots.  Find the Fees., Gretchen Morgenson, The New York Times, September 4, 2005.  “To many investors, the collapse of the Bayou Group - a hedge fund company and brokerage firm run by Samuel Israel III - may seem like just another financial mishap, and a calamity only for those who had the bad luck to invest with Mr. Israel or to be steered his way by advisers they were wrong to trust.  But actually, the mess at Bayou, which federal prosecutors are now calling a $300 million fraud, should be a clarion call for caution among the many investors who have been throwing money at hedge funds recently. This is especially true for institutions - endowments and public pension plans - that have flocked to hedge funds with the hope of increasing their returns. Because many of these institutions are having financial difficulties - low interest rates are cutting deeply into their returns - they are too often captivated by investments that seem to promise outsized gains with little risk." (Hedge Funds)

 [ D ]

Dirty Little Funds: What Wall Street Won't Tell You About Hedge Funds, Erin Arvelund, Barron's, April 17, 2003.  "So many investors have lost money relying on long-only portfolio managers -- a group that includes most mutual-fund chiefs -- that some are rushing into hedge funds to try to make back the cash. That's not necessarily a smart move. Although hedge funds have beaten mutual funds pretty much in every year since 1987, they certainly aren't for everyone. Regulators are so worried about this that on May 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission will hold an investor roundtable that will likely address the suitability of hedge funds for retail investors, how the funds are marketed to such people, whether hedge funds should register as investment advisers and whether a self-regulatory organization, such as the National Association of Securities Dealers, should oversee them. Until now, hedge funds have been lightly regulated."  (Hedge Funds)

 [ E ]

Experts Assess the Influence of Long-Term Capital's Loss, Lynnley Browning, The Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2004.  “In the end, the Nobel prizes, doctoral degrees and dizzying financial transactions could not obscure what Long-Term Capital Management was doing, according to a court ruling on Friday. And that, the judge said, was dodging taxes.  Still, leading tax lawyers, economists and tax executives who digested the decision over the weekend are focusing less on why Long-Term Capital's brainpower chose to skirt the law and more on what the decision means for future cases.” (Hedge Funds (Governance))

 [ F ]

 [ G ]

 [ H ]

Hedge Funds Bet On Catastrophe Reinsurance, Gregory Zuckerman and Theo Francis, The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2004.  “Hedge funds once confined their wagers to stocks, bonds and interest rates. Now that their latest investment craze is betting on hurricanes, are the hedge funds straying too far from their expertise?  Hedge funds are sitting on mountains of cash, facing subpar gains in stocks, bonds and other markets, and are eager for an investment that isn't tied to other markets. That is why, as previously reported, a number of hedge funds have begun to enter into privately negotiated transactions that allow reinsurance companies -- those that insure other insurers -- and others to hedge their exposure to losses from natural catastrophes, including Hurricane Ivan, which was barreling toward the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama last night.” (Hedge Funds (Risk versus Returns))

Hedge Funds Better at Managing Data Than Managing Money, Alan B. Krueger, The New York Times, December 9, 2004.  “Hedge funds have grown at supersonic speed. In 1990, about $50 billion was invested in hedge funds; today, the amount is estimated at $1 trillion.  Does superior performance explain the rapid growth? No, says Burton G. Malkiel, a professor of economics at Princeton University, and Atanu Saha, a managing principal at the Analysis Group, a consulting firm. The researchers recently completed a study that challenges the often-made claim that hedge funds, in general, produce lofty returns.  Hedge funds are a diverse set of investment funds that typically cater to wealthy clients and institutions. The funds pursue various strategies, like holding both long and short positions, and often employ substantial leverage. Their fees are usually much higher than those charged by mutual funds or other financial assets."  (Hedge Funds)

Hedge Funds' Glitter Fades (but Not for Investors), Riva D. Atlas, The New York Times, November 5, 2004.  “Barton M. Biggs, the well-known stock strategist who left Morgan Stanley last year to set up a $2 billion hedge fund, has been writing a book, "Diary of a Hedge Hog,'' that promises to "describe the agonies and ecstasies of creating and running a new hedge fund."  So far this year, the experience for Mr. Biggs's investors has been agonizing.  After rising 16 percent last year, Mr. Biggs's fund, called Traxis Partners, is down 8.3 percent as of the end of October, according to a person briefed on the results. Earlier this year, Mr. Biggs made an aggressive bet that the price of oil would fall. Instead, it hit record highs, recently peaking at more than $55 a barrel.  In the meantime, Mr. Biggs has postponed the release of his book, which was scheduled for next month, his publisher, John Wiley, said. Mr. Biggs could not be reached for comment.” (Hedge Funds)

Hedge Funds, Leverage, and the Lessons of Long-Term Capital Management, Report of The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, The United States, April 1999.  “The term “hedge fund” is commonly used to describe a variety of different types of investment vehicles that share some similar characteristics.”  (Hedge Funds (Long-Term Capital Markets))

Hedge Funds' Sudden Exposure: Glitz Is Gone, But They Multiply, Gregory Zuckerman and Craig Karmin, The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2003.  “For all their mystique, hedge funds are little more than souped-up models of mutual funds. Created five decades ago by investors searching for ways to protect, or hedge, their investments, hedge funds buy stocks, bonds, commodities or other investments, then offer investors the chance to buy into the whole package.  But unlike most mutual funds, hedge-fund managers can borrow money to increase the size of their investments, and they can make big bets against the market by employing strategies like short selling that pay off when stocks go down.”  (Hedge Funds | Financial Firms (Marketing and Managed Money))

Hedge Funds Target Smaller Investors, Jane J. Kim, The Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2005.  “There is no greater evidence of the phenomenal growth of hedge funds than this: There are now nearly as many of them as there are mutual funds.  These investments -- lightly regulated private funds that often take high-stakes, highly leveraged positions in securities -- were originally created for high net worth and institutional investors. But now, aiming to capitalize on the huge popular fascination with them, many hedge funds are increasingly targeting less-sophisticated investors as well." (Hedge Funds)

Hedge-Fund Valuations Cloud The Truth in Portfolio Returns, Henry Sender and Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2003.  "At the heart of the mystique of hedge funds is the belief that they produce stellar returns without the jolts of some mutual funds, even during vicious bear markets. In exchange, wealthy individuals and a number of institutions hand over money to hedge-fund managers with few restrictions on what they can do with it. "  (Hedge Funds)

Hedge-Fund Leaders Fire Back Ater Study Questions Returns, Scott Patterson, The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2005.  “Burton Malkiel, the Princeton economist who popularized the belief that a blindfolded monkey throwing darts could pick stocks as surely as the experts, has become the target of some dart throwing himself.  Hedge-fund industry leaders are lining up against Mr. Malkiel, author of the widely read investment guide "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," and a study he co-authored that argues hedge-fund indexes, which track the returns of select groups of the funds, are artificially inflated by several percentage points.  The brewing battle, which has gone mostly unnoticed outside of academia, raises legitimate questions over how the largely unregulated hedge-fund industry uses databases and indexes to track and publicize its performance.” (Hedge Funds (Performance))

Hedging Your Hedge-Fund Bet, Jonathan Reiss, Barron’s, July 31, 2006.  “Hedge Funds are suspiciously popular these days among financial cognoscenti. The Institute for Private Investors' survey of extremely wealthy investors indicated that about 80% have some investment in hedge funds and nearly a third have more than 25% of their assets in them. Private and public pension funds are increasing their stakes in hedge funds in the hopes of scoring double-digit returns on investments. This raises public policy concerns as poor performance will not affect just rich investors but also put employee pensions and taxpayers at risk.  Undoubtedly, some of the 8,219 hedge funds will produce excellent returns for the $1.2 trillion in assets entrusted. Yet it is almost certain that in aggregate, hedge fund returns will be disappointing. It just isn't possible for every manager -- like Lake Wobegon's children -- to be above average. Indeed, their proliferation suggests a much more interesting investment opportunity: selling hedge funds short.”  (Hedge Funds (Law of Averages))

 [ I ]

If I Only Had a Hedge Fund, Jenny Anderson and Riva D. Atlas, The New York Times , March 27, 2005.  “It seemed like an ordinary evening at Crobar, the trendy Manhattan nightclub. Two weeks ago, as Counting Crows performed on stage, young women dressed in expensive jeans pushed toward the front with their khaki-clad, mostly older boyfriends. Few, however, were regulars. On this night, the very rich and the merely rich intermingled on the club's two floors - V.I.P.'s upstairs ($1,000 a ticket) and the rest down below ($250).  Most of the 1,250 people gathered for the event, the Robin Hood Foundation charity ball, were part of the city's unlikely new "it" crowd. Richer than Wall Street rich and more willing to take risks than their traditional money management peers, they are the managers behind the staggering growth in hedge funds, those private, lightly regulated investment vehicles aimed at the ultrawealthy, the run-of-the-mill wealthy and, increasingly, the not-so wealthy." (Hedge Funds)

Invest at Your Own Risk, David F. Swenson, The New York Times (Opinion), October 19, 2005.  “The current mania for hedge funds reaches into every corner of the investment world. As is often the case with financial excesses, what began as a reasonable opportunity for sophisticated investors has become a killing ground for naïve trend-followers, with scandals and frauds prompting predictable calls for increased regulation of hedge funds. But if Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission really want to protect individual investors, they should prohibit unsophisticated players from participating in hedge funds." (Hedge Funds)

Is a Hedge Fund Shakeout Coming Soon?  This Insider Thinks So, Mark Himein, The New York Times, September 4, 2005.  “Of all the sectors of the financial universe, the hedge fund world is probably the most secretive and almost certainly the most alluring. Open only to institutions and the wealthy, hedge funds offer sophisticated models of risk, access to the best financial minds and the chance for outsized returns. According to Van Hedge Advisors, hedge fund assets have topped a trillion dollars.  The downside, unfortunately, is that occasionally the industry may be subject to catastrophic and unexpected losses. In 1998, many top hedge fund managers lost their shirts. Long Term Capital Management came close to collapse. Just last month, investors were reminded of exactly this kind of possibility with the apparent failure of a $400 million Connecticut hedge fund managed by the Bayou Group." (Hedge Funds (Risk Management))  Systemic Risk and Hedge Funds

 [ J ]

 [ K ]

Kirk Wright’s Razzle-Dazzle Play, Monee Fields-White, Bloomberg Markets, October, 2006.  “You've got only yourself to blame -- and maybe your broker, too.  Researchers are trying to get a better handle on how much money investors really make. The results? They aren't pretty.  It turns out we often fare far worse than the stock-market averages and published mutual-fund returns suggest, because we buy the wrong investments at the wrong time. For proof, consider three recent studies.”  (Hedge Funds)

 [ L ]

 [ M ]

 [ N ]

 [ O ]

 [ P ]

Paradise and Money Lost, Jim McTague, The New York Times, August 14, 2005.  “When Feb. 24, Ronald S. Kochman hurried out of the elevator onto the 17th floor of an office tower in West Palm Beach, Fla., that KL Group, a hedge fund advisory firm, called home. Normally bustling with activity, the place was eerily quiet that morning as Mr. Kochman strode past the elegant conference rooms toward his destination: the corner office of Won Sok Lee, one of the firm's principals." (Hedge Funds)

 [ Q ]

 [ R ]

 [ S ]

Sleaziest Show on Earth, Neil Weinberg Bernard Condon, Forbes, May, 24, 2004.  “Hedge funds will suck in $100 billion this year from an ever-broader swath of investors. Pretty good for a business rife with exorbitant fees, phony numbers and outright thievery.”   (Hedge Funds)

Story of a Betting Man, And His Fund's Hard Fall:  Collapse of Eifuku Master Trust Happened in Seven Trading Days, Henry Sender and Jason SInger, The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2003.  “Unfortunately, Mr. Koonmen was less successful in placing wagers when it came to running his hedge fund, the Eifuku Master Trust, a Japan-based portfolio with $300 million under management at its peak in 2001. Mr. Koonmen managed to lose nearly all his investors' money. The collapse came in just seven trading days earlier this year, a stunningly rapid loss all the more remarkable because it occurred amid calm market conditions.”  (Hedge Funds)

 [ T ]

 [ U ]

 [ V ]

 [ W ]

When All Numbers Are In, Do Hedge Funds Shine?, Mark Hulbert, The New York Times, November 30, 2003.  “Hedge funds use many strategies to try to produce extraordinary returns in any market. But a new study suggests that, on average, hedge funds may perform worse than mutual funds.  Previous studies have overstated average hedge fund returns because of several deficiencies in hedge fund performance databases. Until now, researchers have not had access to information that would let them determine the extent of the bias.”  (Hedge Funds (Performance))  Go to: A Reality Check on Hedge Funds Returns

Worry Amid Hedge Fund Boom:  Privileged Access to Information, Henny Sender and Anita Raghavan, The Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2006.  “In late 2002, the manager of Marshall Wace LLP, a large London hedge-fund firm, received two important phone calls from an investment bank that was about to unveil a client's offering of securities.  Such an offering would be of keen interest to investors. It could be expected to hurt the stock of the issuing company, French telecom giant Alcatel SA. That's because the securities could dilute existing shareholders' stakes.”  (Hedge Funds (Inside Information))

 [ X ]

 [ Y ]

 [ Z ]