Driven IFS and Data Analysis

Stocks vs the Dow - Hedge Funds

Fixed Income
Equity Market Neutral
Long/Short Equity
Event Driven Strategy
Data for Tremont/CSFB hedge fund returns are available only monthly, and for less than the last ten years, so the driven IFS have only about a hundred points.
Hedge funds strive to produce returns independent of market forces. For these examples, this reveals itself through most points lying along the line connecting corners 2 and 4, signaling that the funds go up regardless of the activity of the Dow.
Both the Fixed Income and Equity Market Neutral strategies operate by finding almost identical securities that are not efficiently priced, holding the cheaper and selling the more expensive short. In this way, they hedge out the market risk and produce a reliable return.
Long/Short Equity strategies show more co-movement with the Dow. They operate by holding securities they see as undervalued and selling short those they see as overvalued. These perceptions can be sensitive to market activity, so we see some indication of a trend along the diagonal between corners 1 and 4.
Event Driven Strategies focus on mergers, holding long the targets of mergers and selling short the acquirers. In a climate of few mergers, this strategy holds its funds idle. Historically, mergers are more common in a strong economy, so here, too, we expect the correlation between the find and the Dow revealed through the (faint) diagonal trend.

Return to Stocks vs the Dow.