All of the six hedge fund strategies covered by Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes posted net-of-fees gains in December contributing to the strong overall performance for 2006.

With a net-of-fees return of 1.77%, distressed securities posted the high return in December while equity long/short posted the low return with a gain of 0.52%. In declining order, equity market neutral, event driven, merger arbitrage and convertible arbitrage posted gains within the range defined by the high and low.

For the 2006 calendar year, distressed securities was the top performer with a net-of-fees return of 15.30%. While event driven and convertible arbitrage ended the year with double-digit gains of 12.55% and 10.69%, merger arbitrage came in next with a gain of 9.29% for the year.

Equity long/short was the surprising comeback strategy of the year. It started the year with a top-notch first quarter performance of 5.67%; relinquished all of its gains with a bottom-notch second quarter return of -3.26%; stayed virtually unchanged in the third quarter with a bottom-notch return of 0.05%; and rallied in the fourth quarter with a top-notch return of 5.86%. This volatile quarterly performance accumulated to 8.26% gain over the year.

On the other hand, equity market neutral was a model of consistency. With positive returns in all of the months but one (November), it ended the year with a gain of 7.12%.

On a float-adjusted basis, the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the only broad measure of the domestic equity market, returned 1.17% (1.14% on a full-cap basis) in December. The index ended the year up 15.77% (15.88% on a full-cap basis).

The fixed income asset class, as measured by the Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index, lost -1.13% last month, but ended the year with a gain of 3.77% for 2006.

Finally, the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Index, the broadest measure of global equity markets, was up 2.28% in December, adding to the index’s cumulative return of 21.68% for 2006.

Note: December 2006 figures for the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks are based on daily estimates net of fees. Final performance figures for December 2006 will be available towards the end of January 2007. The methodology used to calculate the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks is available on www.djhedgefundindexes.com .