Performance in the Hedge Funds Industry : An Analysis of Short and Long-Term Persistence

This study focuses on a sensible issue in the hedge fund industry, namely the performance persistence of hedge fund managers.We first analyse the existence of relative performance persistence among individual hedge funds on a cumulative return basis. It is shown that the Specialist Credit and Relative Value investment strategies contain the highest proportion of managers who are continuously outperforming their peers. Furthermore, we observe no evidence that return volatility causes persistence.Using hedge funds average returns for ranking purposes, we then examine the persistence of hedge funds portfolios. Persistence is detected over short-term holding periods (one to three months), but it rapidly vanishes as the formation or holding period lengthens. A half reversal emerges when the holding period reaches 36 months. However, a complete reversal of the portfolios' average returns is never observed. Finally, we use an APT framework to adjust for risk and use the managers' abnormal return as a performance criteria to examine hedge funds' long-term performance persistence. We find a slight overreaction pattern that is more pronounced among traditionally directional strategies