Categories: OLD Media Moves

Weiss: Hedge fund coverage needs to explain itself

Forbes.com columnist Gary Weiss pointed out on his blog that stories in the past two weeks from various news sources have printed contradictory numbers regarding the performance of hedge funds in 2006.

Weiss noted that Reuters reported that a hedge fund index from Credit Suisse reported that the average fund had a return of 13.8 percent for the year.

Weiss wrote, “But then we read that ‘Last week, Hedge Fund Research Inc., the first company to report industry data, said the average hedge fund gained 12.99 percent.’

“So which is it? 13.86% or 12.99%? That’s a significant difference, when you consider the sums of money involved.

“In fact, Reuters didn’t report that the Hennessee Hedge Fund Indices showed an even lower number for average fund performance, 11.36%. Hennessee found that emerging market funds climbed 13.18%, a staggering seven percentage points lower than the Credit Suisse/Tremont numbers.”

Later, Weiss concluded, “The media, I think, needs to be a bit more forthright in reporting on hedge fund industry performance. The press needs to emphasize that none of the hedge fund indexes are particularly reliable, as their contradictory numbers indicate. That’s because only hedge funds that wish to do so actually report their performance. That may skew the results positively, or negatively, but I am sure that it does skew the indexes.”

Read more here.

Recent Posts

The evolution of the WSJ beyond finance

Rahat Kapur of Campaign looks at the evolution The Wall Street Journal. Kapur writes, "The transformation…

6 hours ago

Silicon Valley Biz Journal seeks a reporter

This position will be Hybrid in the office/market 3 days per week, and those days…

6 hours ago

Economist’s Bennet, WSJ’s Morrow receive awards

The Fund for American Studies presented James Bennet of The Economist with the Kenneth Y. Tomlinson Award…

13 hours ago

WSJ is testing AI-generated article summaries

The Wall Street Journal is experimenting with AI-generated article summaries that appear at the top…

14 hours ago

Cohen joining Bloomberg Tax

Zach Cohen is joining Bloomberg Tax to cover the fiscal cliff and tax issues on…

14 hours ago

Avila named interim editor for Automotive Dive

Larry Avila has been named interim editor for Automotive Dive, an Industry Dive publication. He…

15 hours ago