Elliot "The Machine Gun" Odell, a 32-year-old Briton working in the hedge fund industry in Hong Kong and Graham "The Real Deal" McNeill, a 35-year-old partner at property sector consultants EC Harris, recently competed at "Hedge Fund Fight Nite," a charity boxing match. Along with Richard "The Lion Heart" Le-Gallez from HSBC and James "Squeeze" McCaughey from Macquarie investment bank..

All money raised from the event was to go to Operation Breakthrough, which uses boxing as a tool to help tackle juvenile delinquency in Hong Kong, and Operation Smile, which helps repair childhood facial deformities in the poorest parts of the world, organisers said.

Complete story at; Hedge fund fighters deal with market pounding in the boxing ring

In HedgeCo news, hedge fund Manager OakRun Capital LLC announced the launch of a receivables refactoring fund, the 'Short Term High Yield Fund'.

The Cayman Islands exempted fund launched on October 1st and came in at 9.48% annualized in its first month. The fund's objective is to generate above average current income with a lower overall credit risk profile and maintain a stable NAV.

"We do not believe that simply managing for relative performance is satisfactory to our clients or ourselves." says Scott Rhodenizer, Founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer, "While we work to outperform the markets, we strive to do so without excessive risk."

Complete article; Hedge Fund Manager OakRun Launches Short Term Fund

"Our survey found that both institutions and advisors want alternative investments that are liquid, transparent, and regulated like traditional investments," said Steve Deutsch, director of separate accounts and collective investment trusts at Morningstar. "We conducted this survey during one of the worst market downturns in history, where traditional U.S. and international investments plummeted and almost no alternative investments provided safe haven."

"One particularly interesting survey result was that against this backdrop, the majority of both advisors and institutions still reported that they expected to increase usage of alternative investments in the future, and they believed alternative investments will continue to grow in importance versus traditional investments," Deutsch added. "Recent poor performance of alternatives has not caused advisors or institutions to question their usage."

Among the survey findings are that for institutions limited partnerships, including hedge funds, direct real estate, and private equity, are the most popular alternative vehicles for institutions.

Read Complete Article

In a HedgeCo story today, Brotman Capital Partners has turned in the best performance Year to Date of a Market/Trend Timing Hedge Fund.

Through October, 2008 the Fund is up over 14% net of fees.

According to Dr. Randy Brotman, Chairman and CEO, the fund has remained in cash since the middle of August. He states that "in our Trend Timing Fund, cash is an option, therefore a position."

Sent to me by an anonymus hedge fund investor;

An investor hands a hedge fund manager a £10 note.

"Get me a drink. If I like your choice, I'll buy the drinks all night" says the investor.

The hedge fund manager shrugs and orders them a pint of Guinness each.

The barman pours the drinks, takes the cash, and then tells the hedge fund manager "You should have bought vodka instead."

"Really? Why vodka instead of Guinness?" asks the manager.

"More transparency, greater liquidity," replies the barman.

Too late! The investor had already exited....

An interesting platform was brought to my attention, see for yourself here.

The world's first online certified diamond exchange which uniquely offers electronic two-way auctions for buyers and sellers to trade individual diamond categories based on real time tradable spot prices.

MUMBAI: As the Indian market went into a tailspin yet again, the finger of blame once again pointed to leveraged hedge funds, which are trying to cut their losses and run.

But some global fund managers and hedge fund officials maintain the crash was accentuated by too many leveraged players rushing for the exit door at the same time, and not just hedge funds alone.

More at Richard Wilson's Blog