Investable Hedge Fund Indices Launched
Thursday, March 04, 2010

Greenwich Alternative Investments, a leading source of hedge fund industry data, has announced the launch of seven new investable hedge fund indices to complement its existing lineup of actively managed, strategy-based investable indices.

The creation of these new indices is designed to provide greater flexibility to investors who want to capture the performance of more specific hedge fund strategies. In addition to these new indices, Greenwich Alternative Investments also announced the launch of the publication of a monthly in-depth hedge fund strategy and market review.

“The new lineup of Greenwich Investable Indices gives investors a greater number of options in terms of both liquidity and hedge fund strategies to aid portfolio construction in the alternative investment space,” said Clint Binkley, Greenwich Senior Vice President.  “They are specifically designed to capture the beta moves of investment strategies that are unique to the hedge fund asset class.”

The Greenwich Composite Investable Hedge Fund Index outperformed the Greenwich Global Hedge Fund Index (GGHFI) in January, posting returns of -0.27% (monthly liquidity) and -0.41% (quarterly liquidity).  This compares to global equity returns in the S&P 500 Total Return of -3.60%, the MSCI World Equity of -4.19%, and the FTSE 100 of -4.14%. The Greenwich Long-Short Equity Investable Index also posted exceptional results to begin 2010, gaining 0.27% despite broad-based declines in global equity indices. The GGHFI returned -1.04% in January.

The new Investable Event-Driven and Arbitrage Indices were the best performers of the month, gaining 0.62% and 0.73% respectively. The Long/Short Equity Investable Index advanced due to several managers who cut net exposure early in the month in response to monetary tightening in China and sovereign debt risk originating from a Greek fiscal crisis.

In the fixed income space, the Investable Long/Short Credit Index climbed 0.53% while the Investable Equity Market Neutral Index was nearly flat in its first month of performance, losing 7 basis points.  Directional trading funds trailed the rest of the hedge fund universe in January.  Managed Futures funds were the worst performers but the Greenwich Investable Futures Index declined a fraction of the Greenwich Global Futures Index (-1.60% compared to -3.09%).  The Greenwich Macro Investable Index also experienced a slight loss of -0.36%.