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Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London: The first quarter AIMA Journal opens with an address from the association’s Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Baker, entitled 'In defence of hedge funds: institutional investors are giving a vote of confidence’.
In a spirited defence of the industry, Baker finds that while the latest hedge fund performance figures show the average fund was down nearly 5% in 2011, global shares, according to the MSCI All-
Country World Index, were down 9.4% per cent in 2011.
"2011 was a bad year for the global hedge fund industry, but many
managers and strategies did well in very difficult circumstances" writes Baker, pointing out that actually much of the poor performance came late in the year, in the third quarter, when the industry was down 7% while the EU
sovereign debt crisis was raging, but up for the rest of the year. "It is worth putting 2011 in context as one of three down years in
the last 20 for the global hedge fund industry. During 1999-2010,
the major hedge fund indices averaged overall returns (after fees)
of more than 8 per cent per annum."
Baker finds that investors continue to express confidence in the industry. "Barclays
Capital has just put out a report saying that investors may add
about $80bn (£51.78bn) of net new capital to hedge funds globally
in 2012, the most since 2007. More than half the investors surveyed
by BarCap pla...................... To view our full article Click here
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