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Strategies & Market Trends : Z Best Place to Talk Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Larry S. who wrote (51080)	2/19/2004 2:08:55 PM
From: aniela	Respond to of 53068

I added to INOD earlier today; it may break out here

To: Larry S. who wrote (51080)	2/19/2004 2:53:27 PM
From: Ron McKinnon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 53068

interesting divergance dow vs nasd starting to watch nyse stuff like mcd etc for short op

To: Larry S. who wrote (51080)	2/19/2004 3:22:26 PM
From: E.J. Neitz Jr	Respond to of 53068

Lot of $ just waiting to short..Hedge Funds.....article Hedge funds attract record $72.2 billion in '03-TASS Thursday February 19, 3:01 pm ET By Svea Herbst-Bayliss BOSTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Hedge funds pulled in a record $72.2 billion in new assets last year as more conservative investors like pension funds bet on the loosely regulated funds that promise to make money in all markets, new data shows. ADVERTISEMENT Demand also does not seem to be slowing even as the industry faces allegations that some some funds were involved in illegal trading in mutual fund shares. TASS Research, a unit of New York-based hedge fund group Tremont Capital Management, Inc., on Thursday said investors plowed a record $26.8 billion into hedge funds in the fourth quarter. In the year-ago period, they withdrew $695 million. For the year as a whole, inflows more than quadrupled from 2002 when investors added only $16.3 billion, TASS said. The final figures -- TASS had reported preliminary data in January -- show the hedge fund industry now has roughly $750 billion in assets. While this is still only a fraction of the $7.4 trillion managed by mutual funds, hedge fund assets have ballooned in recent years, rising from about $150 billion a decade ago. Once the preserve of wealthy individuals, hedge funds are now becoming popular with conservative investors like pension funds and endowments after they lost billions during the bear market but hedge funds posted strong returns. "Institutional investors have been watching hedge funds for quite some time since their performance in the last years has been very good," said Stephen Jupp, director of quantitative research at Tremont. "Now the allocations are coming through." For example, Massachusetts' state pension fund is currently interviewing a string of funds to invest with this spring. Because hedge fund managers can can use borrowed money to make gains or their losses multiply fast, the funds have long had a reputation of being risky. Also they are expensive. Traditionally hedge funds require investments of about $1 million and the money is locked up for months. On top of that, managers have a reputation for being very secretive, refusing to spell out their strategies to investors for fear of having a rival copy their trading style. Still investors don't seem to be too overly bothered either by the memories of hedge fund blowups like the one engineered at Long Term Capital Management or the illegal trading allegations. Last fall hedge fund Canary Capital Partners LLC was named in New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's complaint that launched the mutual fund industry investigation. Instead investors seem to be ready to take on the risk but are taking new steps to make sure they pick the right fund. A recent Deutsche Bank survey shows the majority of would-be investors spend at least three months investigating funds they may want to put money into. Industry analysts also say the new hedge fund investors prefer to play it safe by putting money into so-called long/short equity funds that bet on stocks going up or down. In the fourth quarter of 2003, that type of strategy pulled in more money than all others, attracting $6.2 billion, TASS data shows. Part of the allure, industry analysts said, were the returns. The average long/short equity fund rose more than 17 percent in 2003, data from CSFB/Tremont shows. Looking ahead, analysts expect to see additional inflows if performance stays strong. In January, data from the Hennessee Group shows the average hedge fund returned 2.14 percent. "January was a good month for performance and since the flows tend to lag behind performance a little bit, I expect flows to remain strong," Jupp said.