Hedging the bets

The hedge fund industry can trace its roots back to the middle of the last century yet for the majority of its existence has only been accessible to the institutional market and ultra high net worth individual. Over the last decade hedge funds have become readily available to the retail investor and are now often incorporated alongside traditional asset classes such as equities and bonds when constructing a well diversified investment portfolio. Traditional long only investment funds operate in a relative return environment where performance is measured against a predefined benchmark or p...