Damned Ugly In Pink. But...

 

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And here, with the understatement of much more than a mere month, Oliver Schupp, president of Credit Suisse Index Co.: Oliver?

"September was a difficult month for hedge funds across strategies..." 

Which sounds so much more palatable than “September was the worst month in hedge fund history and everybody’s hair’s on fire.”

Little Known Factoids: 

Despite the widespread repetition of the canard in the allegedly grown-up meejuh, hedge funds have never promised to make money in all market conditions. In Sep., the S&P 500 was down 8.91 per cent; the main CS/Tremont index, and 11 of the 13 sub-indexes, beat that low bar. 

The Dow Jones World Index was down 12.72 per cent; that puts the 8.93% drop in the emerging markets sub-index into some kind of context, and even convertible arb. beat that lower bar. 

Convertible arb. was, more than most strategies, royally screwed by short-selling restrictions, both in the US and across the world. 

For the 12 months through Sep. 30, the headline hedge fund index is down 7.71 per cent, respectively one-third and one-quarter of the tumbles in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones World index.

Getting back to even for that 12-month spell? The hedge fund index will have to gain 8.4 per cent; the S&P 500 needs to rise 28.2 per cent; and the Dow Jones World index 39.2 per cent. 

Oh, and nobody got paid 20 per cent of anything this month.