Asset Characteristics of Hedge Funds

Abstract

Hedge funds are considered an alternative asset class, in contrast with traditional investments such as stock and bonds. One of the reasons to view hedge funds in a somewhat different light than “bread and butter” asset classes is the differing asset characteristics that hedge funds exhibit. This installment of the hedge fund series focuses on these performance characteristics, providing insights into returns and correlations, but also drilling into additional distributional aspects such as skewness and kurtosis (fat tails).