Hedge funds.

Contents.

Introduction. 6

Chapter 1. Alternative asset management development
and its peculiarities. 9
1. Alternative asset management definition and main classes. 92. Hedge fund origin and history. 12
3. Conception and structure of modern hedge funds. 15
4. Hedge fund risks and benefits. 17

Chapter 2. Main hedge fund performance characteristics. 20
1. Hedgefund legal entity and regulation. 20
2. Hedge fund styles and strategies. 24
3. Hedge fund indexing. 29

Chapter 3. Hedge fund industry retrospection and tendencies. 35
1. The1990-Q2 2008 hedge fund industry survey. 35
2. The 2008-2009 tendencies on alternative asset management market. 43
2.1. Hedge fund performance in 2008. 43
2.2. Highlights of the hedge fund industry in 2009. 53

Chapter 4. Hedge fund activity andperspectives in Russia. 57
1. Hedge fund development at the present stage in Russia. 57
2. Primary hedge fund industry players and their performance indicators. 62
3. Hedge fund market perspectives in Russia. 71

Conclusion.76

Bibliography. 79

Introduction.

Innovations in financial sector, development of new types of alternative asset management, investment structure complication and diversification, derivative market growth and intensification, modernmore and more multifarious facilities of capital multiplication and hedging – these are the key tendencies of the world financial markets during the last 15 years. And finally, booming growth of the hedge fund industry, which became one of the most fast-growing sectors of financial industry and one of the main players on the world stock exchanges.
And all it was not occasionally: as hedgefunds are exclusively many-side, flexible and dynamic class of financial instruments. They provide considerably larger basket of assets and strategies, than traditional investments in share, obligations, or mutual funds. Thanks to this, their return has a very low or even negative correlation with traditional asset return. That is why hedge funds, usually showing a positive return even in theperiods of serious recessions on stock markets, became one of the most actual investment tools.
Practically all hedge fund researchers agree about one think – hedge funds’ addition to traditional asset portfolio significantly improves a return/risk portfolio profile. Therefore hedge funds enjoy their popularity and became a valuable diversification instrument, having increased assets under theirmanagement more than 20 times in the last 15 years.
However, in the issue of global financial crisis tightening up 2008 was the record year in the hedge fund industry by the number of hedge fund closures. Financial losses’ wave extension, fund withdrawal, hedge funds’ closures and bankruptcies, undoubtedly, threaten further successful industry existence.
Negative dynamics of hedge fund…