Asset Allocators' Soapbox: Coombs on alternatives

The alternatives space provides the most important cornerstone of our ethos of non-correlated returns. Many of the successful equity long/short funds preserved capital well during the bear market of 2001 and 2002, as well as the credit crisis of 2008. Post-2008, however, most have struggled to generate good returns. Allocating to long-short is potentially tricky because it’s not an asset class, and the variability of outcomes is extremely high. However, it’s the poor performance of these strategies in 2011 that has spurred our review of the area. In a nutshell, long/short equity st...