While it is established that idiosyncratic volatility has a negative impact on the cross-section of future stock returns, the relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and future hedge fund returns is largely unexplored. We document that hedge funds with high idiosyncratic volatility...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the return performance of different investment strategies in the hedge fund sector, with a particular emphasis on the recent US financial crisis of 2007-2010. Additionally, the paper aims to investigate the comovement of hedge fund index returns. The...

This paper studies the effects of financial speculation on commodity futures returns, using publicly available data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, aggregated by trader groups. We exploit the heteroskedasticity in the weekly data to identify exogenous variation in speculators'...

The average hedge fund represented by the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index of more than 2,000 funds lost 19 percent in 2008 but turned around and gained 20 percent in 2009. Was this extreme performance due to alpha or to embedded betas? The most-quoted measure of volatility is the VIX Index....

In this article, we examine performance persistence and the implied volatility smile of the commodity options contracts. We examine contracts of wheat, corn, live cattle, soybean oil, and lean hog. Hedge funds use options and futures in terms of commodities to hedge market risk. We compare the...