The smart money believes that once the retail investor gets hold of an investing strategy or individual security, it's time to sell. Sure enough, now that retail investors are able to partake of hedge funds in unprecedented numbers (thanks to the...
The recent bear market was one of the worst in history, but investors in the Calamos Market Neutral Fund, a mutual fund, hardly noticed. With annual total returns averaging a solid, if unspectacular, 8.4 percent from 2000 through 2002, the bear...
Assets in separately managed accounts are growing steadily again after hitting a rough patch between 2001 and 2003, but many investors still don't understand what it is they do. Interviews with more than two dozen investors who own SMAs found that...
To what can administering to a separately managed account be best compared? Arm-wrestling an octopus, some posit. Herding cats, others offer. Fact is, just about any advisor offering managed accounts can testify to the complexity of the related...
In his influential book, Pioneering Portfolio Management, Yale University's chief investment officer, David Swenson, makes the case for illiquidity. Swenson notes that on Oct. 19, 1987, the day the stock market dropped by more than 22 percent, a...
With the securities firms forever searching for edgy products, it should come as little surprise that exchange-traded-fund (ETF) wrap accounts are growing in popularity. ETF wraps, which are less expensive than mutual funds, are seen by many as a...
Three years ago Barton Biggs, the curmudgeonly chief global strategist of Morgan Stanley, said a hedge funds had gripped the United States and Europe and that a was inflating. Biggs allowed that he didn't know when the hedge fund bubble would...
Three years ago, at the height of the equities run-up, investors had little reason to be interested in hedge funds. The intervening years have brought with them some important lessons about diversification, and this has made alternative...
ARBITRAGE STRATEGIES Convertible Arbitrage: Managers invest in companies' convertible securities. Typically, they will be long the convertible bond and short the common stock of the same company. Positions are designed to generate profits from the...
If a recent SEC staff report is any indication, it may not be long before hedge fund investment professionals are regulated as heavily as their brethren at brokerage firms. The Sept. 2003 report, entitled Implications of the Growth of Hedge Funds...
