New Focus on Retirement Income, Calculators
IQ Alpha Hedge Strategy Fund to be Team Managed, Invest in ETFs
Voices Support for Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae
Flows Tumble 79% to a Mere $12.5B Trickle
The deadline for entries to Money Management Executive's Sixth Annual Fund Operations Awards has been extended through Thursday, July 31, so you still have plenty of time to enter. This is the perfect way to receive the accolades you believe your firm or service provider deserves for one or more of the following categories: Leadership, Innovation, Efficiencies/Streamlining and New Media. Entry forms and information are available at our website: http://www.mmexecutive.com/fund_operations_awards/.
The credit crisis continues to hit the $2 trillion hedge fund industry hard (see related story, page one). More funds have left the industry, and fewer have entered, over the past six months than collectively last year. In April and May it seemed the hedge fund market was rebounding as it experienced gains of 1.2% and 2.11% respectively, according to data from Hedge Fund Research. In June, however, losses returned, with the average hedge fund slipping 0.68%. Through June, the average hedge funds is off 0.75%.
The ongoing credit crisis saga has taken a tremendous toll on hedge funds due to their exposure to structured mortgage-backed assets-and for those heading or parsing trades overseas to avoid U.S. taxes: Beware. The contracting demand for mortgage-backed securities-which had been dramatically overvalued by brokers who pushed more than 600 varieties of these assets to hedge fund managers through unregulated, highly leveraged repos-precipitated the tightening of unsecured term funding.
Mutual fund companies and other financial services firms continue to battle one another for wealth management talent even though companies are forced to pay hefty salaries that crimp profits.
'I cheated my investors because I was afraid to admit my failure. I did not want the world to think I was not good enough and I did not want my family to see me as a failure.' Those are some of the choice, cowardly words from Samuel Israel III, the erstwhile Bayou Capital hedge fund manager who cheated investors out of $450 million, when begging the sentencing judge for leniency. Apparently, Israel believes he was justified in, and can earn sympathy for, ripping off his clients because he couldn't measure up to his prominent New Orleans family. His lawyer also pled on Israel's behalf, noting the swindler's pacemaker, back trouble and addiction to pain killers.
WASHINGTON - Volatile market conditions and the credit crisis have put the hard brakes on new hedge funds. The number of hedge funds launched in the first quarter was the lowest for a quarter since 2000, while fund liquidations increased from a year earlier. There were 247 hedge funds launched in the first quarter, down from 251 a year earlier, according to Chicago's Hedge Fund Research. One hundred seventy hedge funds were liquidated in the three months, 23.2% more than in last year's first quarter.