“Your clones are very impressive. You must be very proud.”

- Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars Attack of the Clones, 2002

Star Wars fans may remember Obi-Wan Kenobi’s famous words after cleaning up by shorting Death Star sub-prime debt in a galaxy far far away then hedging it with a Sith-Jedi total return swap.  But was Kenobi serious, or was he just being flippant?  Was he really impressed with the clones?

French business school and research institute Edhec also takes a moment this week to pay tribute to the burgeoning ranks of clones – these ones of the hedge fund variety.  In this article, Edhec’s Walter Gehin discusses the key players in the field, but like Obi-Wan, is somewhat obtuse about his personal feelings on the subject.

The piece contains a great listing of all the current (major) hedge fund clone offerings (e.g. ART, ABI, ARB, T-Rex, Altera, MAST, ABS – seriously, these are all real names) and divides them into two main categories: factor-based and rules-based.

While he seems to agree with the general concept of factor replication, Gehin strikes a note of skepticism:

More…