From alpha to omega

It's all about higher moments. The kind where you decide what is really important about what you do and how you allocate your resources. Lionel Martellini presents the Edhec guide to hedge fund enlightenment

There seem to be two main reasons behind the success of hedge funds in institutional money management. On the one hand, it is argued that hedge funds may provide abnormal risk-adjusted returns, due to the superior skills of hedge fund managers and flexibility in trading strategies.

These benefits have been labelled "return enhancement" or "portable-alpha" benefits and have been the focus of rich academic literature on the presence (or absence) of skills in hedge fund management (see, for example