Beyond handsome returns and solid and growing assets under management, there is little hedge fund managers like more than watching industry nemeses, finger-pointers and doomsayers eat a little crow.

Which is why the crow buffet served up to the press and the broader hedge fund-bashing public last week – a smorgasbord of good-news reports from the likes of Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research, New York-based consulting firm Hennessee Group and Singapore-based Eurekahedge showing hedge fund returns are on track for their best collective year in a decade – provided a tantalizing aroma of cooked-crow revenge.

By all three firms’ estimates, the average hedge fund returned somewhere above 1% and somewhat close to 2% in August, bringing year-to-date returns to around 15%. While less than the S&P 500’s 3.36% August increase and 12.99% year-to-date rise, the gains – if they continue at the current pace – could put hedge funds in pole position to surpassing their best year on record: 31.3% in 1999.

It’s all a far cry from just a few short months ago, when analysts and the mainstream press were sounding the death knell for hundreds of hedge fund managers who seemingly had little way of ever clawing back above their high water marks, and no incentive to continue running the show as a result. More…