Dear Alpha Mail Subscriber:
We concluded last month's email with the rather ominous wish "May December be a much less interesting month". Well apparently the hedge fund spirits thumbed their noses at us.
The hedge fund news cycle ebbs and flows throughout the year. As it does, we try to cover a variety of topics that fit our mandate of chronicling the massive and fundamental changes occurring in the investment management industry.
But sometimes the news cycle becomes flooded with stories on just one topic. This often diverts attention from topics of a more general nature since, for a short time, nothing else seems to matter. Faced with a highly distracted audience, anyone who was about to say or publish anything interesting puts their plans on ice. This happened after Lehman and, of course, it happened again on 12/11. Since then, we have struggled to find news or research that didn't contain the word "Madoff".
Despite this, we will continue to search the web for observations, news, research, and commentary that captures what else is going on in the world of alpha-centric asset management. So if you are looking for a break from the "All Madoff, All the Time" news cycle, try our top 10 posts from last month: |
| Last Month's Most Popular Posts |
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- Douglas issues bold HF forecast: "Golden Age" of higher returns, new managers & smaller funds on its way: Despite December's blockbuster story, industry watcher Peter Douglas' pre-Madoff predictions still seem quite reasonable. This was one of our all-time most-emailed posts.
- Hedge fund industry enters time-warp in January 1970, pops out virtually unchanged in 2008: The more things change, the more they stay the same. You simply won't believe this one until you read it yourself.
- Form ADV: Would hedge fund registration have helped Madoff investors?: Okay, we admit to "some Madoff, some of the time."
- Did Pennsylvania take a wrong turn with portable alpha?: It's easy to pin blame on an "exotic strategy". But the travails of one portable alpha investor are actually much more pedestrian.
- Attendees at Hedge Funds World Zurich wonder: Should risk models now anticipate the "statistically impossible"?: Conference goers - including one Nassim Taleb - debate whether black swans should now be an expected phenomenon.
- Mystical Dates on the Hedgistanian Calendar: Think the Mayans, ancient Egyptians, and weirdo cult-leaders were the only ones who worshipped arbitrary calendar dates? Think again.
- Back-of-the-envelope analysis shows hedge fund indexes not lining up with each other this fall: Not only are hedge fund returns all over the board right now, but hedge fund index returns have diverged too.
- Fee-conomics: A lot has been written about the changing nature of hedge fund fees. Here's some of what we think you need to know.
- "Putting it all on black": A recent academic study adds fuel to the debate over whether managers who are down late in the year hold on to their cash or whether they make huge bets to dig themselves out of the hole.
- Letter from 8 year old reader: "Is there hedge fund alpha?": Kids say the darndest things...
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As we start 2009, AllAboutAlpha.com is now home to over 850 original articles on hedge fund industry trends, portfolio construction, institutional investing, alternative beta, and various other "alpha-centric" topics. In addition, paid subscribers can now access over 250 academic studies, industry reports and presentations through our research dossiers. If you are not yet a subscriber to our archives and dossiers, we encourage you to check a free sample here (if you haven't visited recently, try using your full email address as your ID and password). If you're a technophile and own one of Amazon's new " Kindle" e-book readers, you can now take AllAboutAlpha.com with you on the road. As of today, we are the 27th "best selling" investing blog available on this whacky little device. Click here to find out more. That's all for now. Until next month, here's to the post-Madoff era.
Happy Alpha Hunting,
Christopher Holt, Editor
AllAboutAlpha.com
editor@allaboutalpha.com
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| Thursday, January 8, 2009 |
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