measuring performance

A meaningful methodology to assess hedge funds is difficult to find

The scene: An executive committee meeting of a large institutional investment portfolio.

Committee member: How do we expect to achieve our investment return target over the next few years? Global equity markets were down again last year and are struggling this year. There was a time when US and non-US equities provided some diversification benefits, but not any longer. The fixed income markets were good to us the last two years, but credit is becoming a problem and a 6% or 7% annualised return is