More Hedge Fund Returns for April 2011

Like HFRI vs. HFRX the broad Credit Suisse index shows stronger gains than the narrower core index this month, with the index rising 1.8% overall:



And though Managed Futures did extremely well in both the Core and Broad indices there are some substantial differences in the other strategies such as Global Macro. The core index may be then mainly an indicator of direction of change alone and not a good proxy to the performance of a broader basket of hedge funds? Looking at global macro HFRX showed a 0.89% increase in April, Credit Suisse Core a 0.44% gain, Credit Suisse Broad a 2.46% gain, and HFRI a 3.36% gain.

BTW, at mid-May the HFRX indices are showing declines across almost all hedge fund strategies and a 1.8% loss for the global hedge fund index.

Heavy Travel Year

I just booked my trip to Korea. Later in the year I may go to the US. And I already visited Cloud Cuckoo Land (CCL). It will be my busiest flying year since 2002 when I did two round the world trips, a trip to Israel and back, and moved to the US from Australia. A total of 95,000 miles. This year is heading to 50,000 + miles but will still be only the third heaviest traveling year for me unless I exceed 2001's 60,000 miles (Two trips to the US and one to Britain). The next couple of years are going to involve a lot of flying too. I do actually have data on all the flights I have ever taken:



I started the file some time in the early 1990s when I was curious how far I had flown so far and there weren't that many flights yet to remember. The first time I flew was when I was 18 in 1983. It was also the first time I left my home country.

I didn't get the job in CCL and today put in another application for a permanent job at my current employer. This is fifth the since since we moved back to Australia. Some important people want to hire me and so the chances look very good. But I have had department chairs wanting to hire me before only to be over-ruled by other faculty members when they got to compare me with the other candidates.

Hedge Fund Report: April 2011

There is a trend to earlier and earlier reporting each month of the results of the various hedge fund indices. Credit Suisse, now has a "Core Hedge Fund Index" along the lines of the HFRX. It gained 1.44% in April:



Managed futures did particularly well, but they did particularly badly in March. HFRX reported qualitatively similar results:



However, they estimate that hedge funds only gained 0.47% in April. Preliminary HFRI results show generally stronger performance than both these indices, with an overall gain of 1.86%:

Moominvalley April 2011 Report

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD rose yet again to 109.4 US cents. This improved our returns in USD terms and reduced them in AUD terms. We again can no longer just say "dollars" without thinking about whether we mean US or Australian Dollars. World stock markets rose in little in USD terms with the MSCI World Index gaining 4.15% for the month. Here is the summary account for March:



As you can see almost all the investment gain came from foreign exchange gains with just $928 of underlying returns. Of course, we lost money in terms of Australian Dollars. Non-investment income of $11,000 a month is the new normal... Expenditure was $5,533. We had to spend about $600 on car repairs/service. But apart from that it's hard to say where the money went... (It's AUD 5,058 and $4,500 without the car expenses is pretty normal).

The rate of return was 4.10% in USD terms narrowly underperforming the market, 0.17% in currency neutral terms, and -1.43% in AUD terms.

Net worth rose in USD terms by $31k (rose by $A0k in AUD terms) to $573k ($A524k) another all time high in USD terms.

Investment allocation saw a small increase in private equity due to gains in OCP.AX. and a small reduction in Australian stocks due to market movements.

Moominmama Portfolio Performance April 2011

The portfolio had nice gains in April, though largely due to the fall in the US Dollar. The MSCI World Index rose 4.15% and the portfolio 3.46%. As you can see we made a few large changes in the portfolio - selling bonds - in preparation for both buying new investments and another possible major move (actually quite literally) in possible progress. We are also making some progress in sorting out the probate situation in the UK regarding one of my Dad's investments (he died in 2002 so this has been a long-term problem). We also closed my Mom's remaining UK offshore bank account and consolidated that account into her main fund manager. Generally, we are trying to simplify her affairs, diversify investments further, and deal with her living situation.