Van Reports Hedge Funds Well Up In October

by Carla Johnson, Investors Offshore, London

29 November 2006

The Greenwich-Van Global Hedge Fund Index returned +1.74% in October (+8.40% YTD), according to hedge fund index provider Greenwich-Van Advisors, LLC. Three of the firm's four major strategy groups have year-to-date returns of roughly +9% or higher.

"All hedge fund strategies followed by the firm, with the exception of short sellers, were up in October and have positive returns year-to-date," notes Ben Rossman, General Manager of the Database and Index Group. "Equities had a very good month, as investors were encouraged by strong corporate earnings and an improved outlook on inflation. Hedge funds captured October's equity upside, posting strong positive returns across strategies.

The Specialty Strategies Group, comprising emerging markets, income and multistrategy hedge funds, returned +2.33% (+11.47% YTD) in October. Emerging strategies led, up +3.13% (+14.26% YTD), amid continued strength in growth rates of emerging economies. The Greenwich-Van Global Multi-strategy and Income indices returned +1.65% (+8.81% YTD) and +0.63% (+7.28% YTD), respectively.

The Long/Short Equity Group returned +2.14% in October (+8.82% YTD) with all long-biased strategies benefiting from strong equity markets. Dedicated short sellers once again found themselves penalized by market direction. The Greenwich-Van Global Opportunistic, Value, Aggressive Growth, and Short Selling strategies, posted October returns of +2.66% (+9.42% YTD), +2.47% (+9.78% YTD), +2.15% (+7.52% YTD), and -4.72% (-4.87% YTD), respectively.

The Market Neutral Group gained +1.34% in October (+9.03% YTD). The Greenwich-Van Event-Driven, Equity Market Neutral, and Market Neutral Arbitrage strategies gained +1.86% (+10.11% YTD), +1.54% (+6.38% YTD), and +0.81% (+9.17% YTD), respectively.

The Directional Trading Group, comprising futures, market timing and macrooriented strategies, returned +1.07% in October (+2.96% YTD). Market Timing, Futures, and Macro-oriented strategies returned +1.49% (+6.85% YTD), +1.30% (+2.33% YTD), and +0.47% (+3.36% YTD), respectively.

The Greenwich-Van Hedge Fund Research Update is published monthly on or around the 10th business day as a service to institutions, plan sponsors, consultants, individual investors, fund managers and the financial services industry. The Greenwich-Van Global Hedge Fund Indices, have been published since 1995 and are among the industry's oldest and most widely utilized composite benchmarks of the entire hedge fund universe.

The Greenwich-Van Investable Hedge Fund Indices are an additional series of hedge fund benchmarks designed to represent expected performance of 'investable' hedge funds that are open and considered suitable for institutional investment. Both indices are updated monthly and calculated as simple averages (not dollar weighted averages) based on underlying hedge fund returns that are net of manager fees and do not include fund-of-funds. Index returns are finalized on the last business day of the month and published on Greenwich-Van's website www.vanhedge.com as the Month-End return.

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