Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
Going global
Global macro and managed futures (CTAs) are still where it’s at, it seems, when it comes to funds of hedge funds.
Nigel Davies’ poll of portfolio managers shows these are the two strategies they are expecting above average returns from in the first half of 2009.
It is little surprise that these two strategies have been picked out.
After funds of hedge funds’ worst-ever returns last year — a loss of 19.97 percent, according to Hedge Fund Research — managers are bound to look to those few strategies that did well.
Managed futures returned an impressive 18.33 percent, according to Credit Suisse/Tremont, while global macro lost 4.62 percent — a loss, but much better than the average.
Lessons from LTCM
As the hedge fund industry faces its biggest challenge to date, it could do worse than learn some lessons from one of its biggest disasters, the 1998 blow-up of Long Term Capital Management.
Victor Haghani, a co-founder of LTCM later involved in its liquidation and now a private investor, was opining at a LSE conference on Monday that simply cutting back funds’ borrowing after the carnage of last year may not be a strong enough lesson for the industry to learn.
