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By Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London: Austria has been in the limelight this last month, as Bank Medici, an Austrian private bank, was found to be one of the major European investors in Madoff’s funds, having allegedly invested more than $2bln in them. Austria took control of the bank a few weeks ago. Also, Austria's financial market watchdog FMA said on last week it planned to extend a ban of the short-selling of some financials for another three months until the end of April-09.

On Tuesday, Austria initiated an aid package to stabilize the emerging European banking sector (source). The head of the Austrian central bank, Ewald Nowotny, said that Austria's exposure to the emerging European banking sector was a manageable risk but one which had be watched closely (source). And Finance Minister Josef Pröll yesterday said Austria's budget deficit would rise more than expected this year (2.5%) and next year (3%) but would stay within the European Union’s budget ceiling of 3% of GDP (source).

2008 may have been a tough year for the alternative investment industry generally and globally, but one of the main exceptions was the systematic managed futures strategy. The Barclay CTA Index returned +14.12% for the y......................

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