Hedge fund indices?

Hedge fund indices disguise a wide disparity of skill and performance. Plenty of hedge funds are up this year. It is nonsense to refer to hedge funds as one homogenous group. Yes some had a rough last quarter but what about the terrific returns put up in 2001 and 2002 when stocks were destroying investor's portfolios?

The dotcoms, Enron, Worldcom and countless other stocks cost investors billions. Are we therefore to avoid ALL equities because some are run by charlatans or incompetents? A few years ago Argentine bonds lost global investors $100 billion. Should investors therefore avoid ALL government bonds?

Investors need long term performance. Good hedge funds have conclusively delivered returns superior to traditional asset classes. How they have done this month, the last quarter or last year is irrelevant. The truly dismal performance over 5 years of long only managers is THE story - not a bad quarter for hedge funds. As for fees, 2% and 20% for a GOOD hedge fund is cheap, 0.2% for simply tracking an index is expensive.