US hedge funds still outperform mutuals
The newsof the healthy returns from US hedge fund investments continues to flow in as mutual fund managers report more lack lustre performance results.
According to global hedge fund advisory firm Van Hedge Fund Advisors International, the average hedge fund in the first six months of this year has performed just above break even point, while equity mutual fund investments have declined by another 10 per cent.
“Since January 1988, there have been 19 quarters in which the Morningstar Average Equity Mutual Fund has lost money. In every one of those quarters, hedge funds did noticeably better, ” Van Hedge Fund Advisors chairman George Van says.
And while the average equity mutual fund has shown a loss for the trailing three year period, the average US hedge fund reported a gain of 44.1 per cent for the same period.
Van Hedge Fund Advisors says US hedge funds have more than tripled the returns of equity mutual funds since 1988 — representing a 950 per cent total return for hedge funds, compared with 280 per cent from share funds.
Over this time frame, the annualised Sharpe Ratio of the Van Hedge Fund Index has been 1.4 per cent, as opposed to 0.4 per cent for equity mutual fund, proof that hedge funds do not increase the risk profile of an investor, according to Van Hedge Fund Advisors.
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