Hedge Fund Replication Using a Strategy Specific Modeling Approach

Download or read book Hedge Fund Replication Using a Strategy Specific Modeling Approach written by Sujit Subhash and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Institutional investors and wealthy individuals have in the past allocated a significant portion of their portfolios to hedge funds with the expectation of unconditional and uncorrelated returns to the market. However, the financial crisis of 2008 has heightened investor sensitivity to the high fees, illiquidity, and lockup periods typically associated with hedge funds. Hedge fund indexes showing excellent returns and low volatility contain funds that are closed to new investments, while the performance of investable funds have been shown to be inferior to their non-investable counterparts. The lack of transparency and extreme variation in the performance of hedge funds make the due diligence process critical in selecting the right fund. These challenges have motivated a search for an alternative to hedge funds. Recent research has established that a significant part of hedge fund returns can be replicated by portfolios constructed using liquid financial instruments. Hedge fund replication products, or clones, answer several challenges faced by hedge fund investors by providing daily liquidity, easy monitoring, and complete transparency at a significant cost advantage to hedge funds. This thesis examines the performance of clones constructed with factors selected based on the economic relevance to each hedge fund strategy by using both a passive model with constant portfolio weights, and an active model requiring monthly rebalancing of portfolio weights. These clones are further compared against the top performing hedge funds to analyze if the clones continue to deliver against a higher benchmark with regard to both risk and return"--Abstract, page iv.