he monthly return distributions of many hedge fund indices exhibit highly unusual skewness and kurtosis properties as well as first-order serial correlation. This has important consequences for investors. We demonstrate that although hedge fund indices are highly attractive in mean-variance terms, this is much less the case when skewness, kurtosis and autocorrelation are taken into account. Sharpe Ratios will substantially overestimate the true risk-return performance of (portfolios containing) hedge funds. Similarly, mean-variance portfolio analysis will over-allocate to hedge funds and overestimate the attainable benefits from including hedge funds in an investment portfolio. We also find substantial differences between indices that aim to cover the same type of strategy. Investors’ perceptions of hedge fund performance and value added will therefore strongly depend on the indices used.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Nicholas Chan & Mila Getmansky & Shane M. Haas & Andrew W. Lo, 2005.
"Systemic Risk and Hedge Funds,"
NBER Working Papers
11200, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Nicholas Chan & Mila Getmansky & Shane M. Haas & Andrew W. Lo, 2007.
"Systemic Risk and Hedge Funds,"
NBER Chapters,
in: The Risks of Financial Institutions, pages 235-338
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
repec:mcr:wpdief:wpaper00029 is not listed on IDEAS