Alpha Mail - A monthly email update from AllAboutAlpha.com
Dear Alpha Mail Subscriber:
 
Summer is a great time for reading. As this recent AllAboutAlpha.com post illustrates, summer can also be a pretty bad time to be investing in hedge funds.  So why not grab your Kindle and hit the beach instead?
 
Ranjan Bhaduri (global head of reseach at AlphaMetrix) recently reviewed the rather whimsical-sounding "Diary of a Hedge Fund Manager" in this post, while Steve Deutsch, the head of Morningstar's Trusts/Foundations/Endowments/Pensions database, recently reviewed "The Big Short" in this post. Thanks to our friends at Wiley Publishers, we were also able to provide you with some free chapters of "Top Hedge Fund Investors", a collection of revealing interviews with various well known hedge fund personalities (see post).  Next up: Sebastien Mallaby's "More Money than God" (...which is a lot of money.  God made a killing by inventing the Universe, oil, mankind, and Goldman Sachs.  And unless you've sold your soul to the Devil, and are "short" soul, he remains the buyer of last resort.)
 
If your Kindle is on the fritz or you were unaware your iPad wasn't designed for beach, you could always read AllAboutAlpha.com instead from the comfort of your desk. We're proud of the eclectic mix of topics featured last month, ranging from prime brokerage services and performance fees to alternative asset classes such as venture capital and commodities.
 
So for those of you who like to wait until this regular email before checking us out each month, here are your Top 10 posts from July.  (The Kindle version is available here - but frustratingly only for American residents.)
Last Month's Most Popular Posts 
  1. Prime Custody: One way for hedge funds to protect against "being Lehmaned"
    The effect of the Lehman bankruptcy still reverberates around the prime brokerage industry in the form of business model innovation.

  2. AllAboutAlpha.com Exclusive: Excerpt from new book "Top Hedge Fund Investors: Stories, Strategies, and Advice"
    A new book out this week chronicles the colourful personalities that helped to build the hedge fund industry we know today.

  3. Recent evolution of commodities markets raises interesting new questions about the asset class
    After a decade of change, debate brews about the appropriate role of commodities in institutional portfolios.


  4. Book Review: Diary of a Hedge Fund Manager
    Keith McCullough's journey from Thunder Bay, Ontario to mid-town Manhattan is both an homage to the "everyman" and a biting critique of the hedge fund industry.

  5. Paper recommends money managers "eat your own cooking"
    Performance fee arrangements can be a dog's breakfast.

  6. Is venture capital really "broken"?
    If it ain't broke, do you try to fix it anyway?

  7. Study quantifies media biases regarding hedge funds and proposes way for hedge funds to exploit them  
    Hedge funds and the mass media have always had a love/hate relationship (with emphasis on the "hate" part). But it turns out that an analysis of media word choices - and the choices of words in funds' own press releases - may contain valuable information.

  8. Seven Questions for Rachel Minard and Fabio Savoldelli of Optima Fund Management
    Today's seven questions are for Fabio Savoldelli, CIO, and Rachel S.L. Minard, Partner and Executive MD of Optima Fund Management.

  9. Institutions to FoHFs: We don't really like you after all 
    Another survey of institutions' thoughts on funds of hedge funds suggests that despite recently reported goodwill, they aren't so enamored after all. So what gives?

  10. Study reveals Achilles heel of mega private equity funds
    Big is apparently not always best in private equity.

It was great to see several of you at Financial Advisor Magazine's inaugural Alternative Strategies Conference in Chicago last month.  This is the first major alternative investment event in which I have participated that was targeted exclusively at financial advisors and, by extension, retail investors.  If the crowds at this gathering are any indication, it appears that pending regulations may finally provide the retail legitimacy long sought after by hedge funds.  That, coupled with the reported death of "buy and hold" (a retail mantra) may finally open the retail door for alternative investments. 
 
If you live in Hong Kong or Singapore, stay tuned to our parent's website CAIA.org for details on upcoming events in those cities.  I'll be in Hong Kong co-chairing Hedge Funds World Asia, then in Singapore for a CAIA-sponsored Alternative Investment Symposium (September).  More on those in next month's Alpha Mail.
 
Until then: Happy Alpha Hunting!
 
Chris
 
Christopher Holt, Managing Editor
AllAboutAlpha.com
[email protected] 


August 17, 2010

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