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36
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Short Selling

:: Issue 36, April 2008

This elusive group of ‘short’ investors have taken the blame for many of the crashes of the last 400 years; from the East India Company of 1609, the Great Wall Crash of 1929, Black Monday in 1987 and the bursting of the dot-com bubble in the early-2000s. Short sellers have been labelled as “stock-bashing rumour mongers” (Albert et al, 1997) and the “assassins of Corporate America” (Business Week, 1996).


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Hedge Fund Regulation

:: Issue 36, April 2008

The last few years have emerged as a pivotal time in the evolution of hedge fund regulation. In early 2006, the industry scrambled to comply with a deadline requiring hedge fund managers to register with the SEC.


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Prime Brokers and Hedge Funds

:: Issue 36, April 2008

Until recently, large investment banks with significant prime broker units were happy to allow some elements of the business to run as a ‘loss leader’ for the accolade of having the big hedge fund names as their clients, particularly if they could claim sole prime broker status.


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Structured Products

:: Issue 36, April 2008

Up to last year, most people regarded valuation as a necessary but unexciting aspect of running an investment operation. Spotting future price changes was the skill to which traders aspired, not the humbler job of correctly measuring today’s price.


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FAIFs

:: Issue 36, April 2008

Following the introduction of funds of hedge funds and commercial property into the FTSE APCIMS (private clients’ investment indices produced by the FSTE) there has been a growing appetite for alternative investment vehicles.


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Islamic Finance

:: Issue 35, March 2008

he Islamic finance market is very young but expanding very rapidly. One of the drivers of that expansion, of course, is the huge amount of liquidity in the Gulf.


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Institutional Assets

:: Issue 35, March 2008

The international capital flows associated with today’s global marketplace have created tremendous fund raising opportunities for hedge fund managers who can adapt to the needs of global institutions. Managers who have succeeded in raising capital from ‘friends and family’ and who are now seeking additional sources of capital must develop an understanding of needs and the nuances of global institutional investors.


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Long-Term Economic Outlook

:: Issue 35, March 2008

Oscar Wilde’s phrase “the triumph of hope over experience” could be applied to investors who assume that equities will always be sound in the long-term.


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2008: The Year of the Activist Hedge Fund

:: Issue 35, March 2008

For the past year people have speculated activist-style investing would go the way of the Internet boom and bust witnessed earlier this decade. However, despite a weaker economic outlook, shaky credit markets, and a subprime turmoil upending financial markets worldwide, activist hedge funds continue to grow at remarkable rates in both number and in assets under management.


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Top Political Risks for 2008

:: Issue 34, February 2008

The biggest story in this entire forecast is that the United States is a serious (indeed, the serious) macro risk factor.


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Structured Credit

:: Issue 33, December 2007 / January 2008

It is conspicuous how applicable basic game theory is to the events unraveling in the credit markets this autumn. Research in insurance theory (more or less applied game theory) has focused on the principal agent problem – the problem of aligning the interests of a principal with his agents.


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Shining a Bright Light

:: Issue 33, December 2007 / January 2008

Issues surrounding the OTC derivatives confirmations backlog following the July-August volume surge are forcing both dealers and hedge fund managers to re-examine alternatives for improving contract settlement.


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Structured Credit

:: Issue 32, November 2007

As Nature’s soft gold starts to cover the grounds here in Central Europe, the credit markets continue to crumble.


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The Ukrainian Enigma

:: Issue 32, November 2007

Ukraine, which was one of the richest parts of the old Soviet Union, arguably lost the first decade of the transition process due to poor leadership.


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What Ratings Mean

:: Issue 32, November 2007

The credit rating industry has been a focus of criticism during the recent market turbulence. While all market participants are learning in this process, much of this commentary has misrepresented the basic role of credit ratings.