West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – In the monthly report from Dow Jones Indexes on the performance of Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks, only one of four strategies, merger arbitrage, posted net-of-fee gains in November.

After hedge funds experienced two of the most volatile months in market history, merger arbitrage emerged with a small positive net-of-fee gain in November, returning 0.15%. The small gain held YTD performance for merger arbitrage at approximately the same level as last month, down about -9%.

Convertible arbitrage was hit the hardest with a loss of -4.80%, followed by event driven and distressed securities, which were down -6.35% and -7.47%, respectively, for November.

The equity market neutral and equity long/short benchmarks were suspended at the start of the month as a result of the temporary risk mitigation measures taken by the investment manager of the managed account platform that supports the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks. It has not been determined when calculation of these benchmarks will resume.

On a float-adjusted basis, the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, the only broad measure of the domestic equity market, lost -8% (-8.15% on a full-cap basis) in November decreasing its YTD return to -38.30% (-38.37% on a full-cap basis).

The fixed income asset class, as measured by the Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index was up 4.88% this month and its cumulative return is down -5.99% for the year. Finally, the Dow Jones Wilshire Global Index, the broadest measure of global equity market, lost -6.73% for the month decreasing its YTD return to -44.68% for 2008.

November 2008 figures for the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Strategy Benchmarks are based on daily estimates net of fees.

Alex Akesson

Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: alex@hedgeco.net

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