The hedge fund industry has an occasional obsession with exotic risk metrics (VaR, Conditional VaR, Omega Ratio, higher moments, etc.).  These make a lot of sense if you have a few Ph.D.’s on staff (read: you’re a large institutional investor).  But what if you need to explain the non-market-tracking nature of a hedge fund to [...]

The SEC's attempt to regulate hedge funds in 2005 hinged on the definition of "client." By avoiding that question in 2010, its newest kick at the can seems likely to allow the issue to fester even longer. As a result, a University of Washington law professor ponders the question of to whom, exactly, a hedge fund adviser owes its fiduciary duty.

The global real estate downturn is presenting some fantastic opportunities in the debt markets - for those who don't mind jumping into the growing funding gap between borrowers and lenders, and for those who think the worst in terms of asset market bubbles and busts is over.

If there's one clear trend when it comes to compensation of hedge fund managers and underlying personnel, it's that the investment community is still willing to pay for what it gets. The difference post-2008 is the terms, conditions and exactly how much.

Unlike many hedge fund strategies, says a new white paper, event-investing requires expertise in a variety of disciplines.

Mutual funds with a high "active share" are once again found to produce higher and more persistent returns - the two basic constituents of alpha. So why is closet indexing as popular as ever? And what does this portend for hedge funds?

It's easy to see why investors find insider trading morally objectionable. But if market prices are a critical form of information transmission, then does "some" insider trading actually help society? And if it does, then what kinds of insider trading?

In a paper last spring, Wharton Professor Christopher Geczy reviewed the research and concluded the hedge fund industry does indeed have a future - a future that just may not look much like its past or present.

While many hedge funds are happy to be single, more and more are now part of growing "families" of hedge funds. One researcher has just examined the behaviour and customs of these families. What she finds may surprise you.

Last week, hedge fund heavyweight Harbinger Capital raised assets, not from investors in the usual way, but by issuing bonds. Coincidentally, a research paper published only a couple of weeks before suggests we may see a lot more of this type of thing in the future.

By: Mikhail Iliev, head writer of Who’s In My Fund? Back in January, AAA asked whether the significant increase in proposed Securities and Exchange Commission examinations heralds a new era for hedge fund oversight. The question looks to be answered soon and most likely in the affirmative – at least in the context of insider trading. Headlines of [...]

As always, the key point in commodity investing: it doesn't have to be directional to be lucrative.

For mid-sized hedge fund managers to attract and keep institutional money, they need to have the infrastructure to handle it. Problem is, in many cases, they need the allocation first before they can - or want to - increase their infrastructure.

Retail and high net worth investors can now gain access to hedge funds through a number of more liquid vehicles. But is their liquidity one of the very reasons their performance may be lower?

How much of the blame for increasing hedge fund correlations should be borne by manager "herding" and how much by increasing correlation between indices? Asian hedge funds may provide an answer.