Sun 5 Oct 2008
Hedge funds may not be imploding (at least not yet), but certainly some investors are going to be angry about the returns for some of their “Hedge” funds (as Quicksilver has pointed out in the past, very few hedge funds live up to their name by actually hedging).
The guys over at DealBreaker (a self-proclaimed Wall Street Gossip Rag) have posted a list of letters going out to hedge fund clients, as well as a non-verified list of returns for some of the big boys. Losses range from the respectable (-2.3% YTD) to the ridiculous (-66% YTD).
Every investment strategy has drawdowns and periods when their strategy doesn’t work, so it’s not really fair to point at the returns for this year and make any real conclusions. We will, however, see how well the managers set investor expectations for events like this, as well as whether or not their leverage ratios really factor in all the adverse market conditions we’ve recently experienced.