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Hedge Fund PR: Some Tips for Managers of Hedge funds

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hedge fund PR has to be one of the most ignored marketing tools of hedge fund managers today. While they tend to be a secretive lot, hedge fund managers have come to recognize the value of hedge fund PR, particularly seeing the benefits of making themselves more available to the press.

Hedge fund managers and their advisors – hedge fund PR experts – know that the media is hungry for real time opinions of hedge fund managers, traders and marketers. They need comments on current market conditions, trends and what prospects lay ahead for the industry as a whole.

Many hedge fund managers shy away from contributing to stories in the press while most hedge fund PR practitioners would advise that they participate as long as they stick to discussing industry trends, general market trends and long-term movements within the industry.

Hedge fund PR: Some tips to get started with:

- Speak to your legal counsel to check on exactly what you can say or not say to the press.

- Develop a list of 10-15 targeted publications which you would like to appear in.

Identify the editor of financial columns within that publication or news source and introduce yourself to them as a resource.

- Speak at public events, conferences, networking events and other places in the industry where you will be heard not only by others in the industry but probably a few members of the press as well.

- Consider writing a book on your insights and experience.

Many professionals in the hedge fund industry are often interviewed on TV after they have published a book on a specific topic in the hedge fund industry, such as regulation or quantitative trading. Yes, writing a book sounds extreme to many who are already working 50 hours a week but that is also why it would be so effective to consider doing so. Those with the time and skills to write well are often not the same with those who have the experience and insight to write something unique and valuable.

The benefits of hedge fund PR are numerous. Powerful and compliant communication will attract investors and attract key talent, while projecting and protecting fund health. Whether placing news stories covering the launch of a new fund, investment strategy, staffing announcements, financial acquisitions or profit reports, generating consistent and positive exposure is essential for hedge fund PR. Hedge fund PR efforts should extend to helping to optimize fund marketing plans and capital raising initiatives. Increasing visibility of talented hedge fund managers is a huge part of this.

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Two Approaches When You Decide to Buy Mutual Funds

October 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The decision to purchase common funds alternatively of stocks kind of goes with the “don’t position all your eggs in one basket” style of thinking. Instead of hitching your wagon to simply one or two kinds of stock, you put alternatively in dozens to hedge your bets. While this is an outstanding way to purchase yourself a spare layer of protection from the unreliability of stock investments, before you can really purchase common fundsyour decision does saddle you with the responsibility of finding an investment approach, finding all kinds of unexampled stocks to put in, and monitoring lots of stocks all at once to essay to ascertain how good you are doing.

There are two kinds of people who invest in mutual funds – people who roll their own so to speak – the ones who look up the stocks in the investment publications and monitor and manage them every day; and then there are the people who will hire their own investment advisor, and pay for the privilege. An advisor usually charges a flat upfront fee; sometimes they can work on commission by investing your money in load funds. That gives them a fee each time you buy or sell. The advantages of working with an advisor are pretty irresistible- you have expert counsel in your financial decisions and you never have no paperwork to worry about. And of course, having a third party involved, helps you be more financially responsible with your investments. The problem with this approach apart from what it costs is that advisers don’t really like to deal with small accounts. You may not actually find that you get as much care and advice as you would like.

The other option is to go solo without a wing man. This is a high maintenance method, but it does come with an added measure of satisfaction for all the work you put into your investment for the fruits it bears. To buy mutual funds on your own or rather to buy the stocks that make up your mutual funds on your have, go with no-load funds. Buy anything else and you’ll be looking at paying sales commissions on every tweak you make in your holdings. Vanguard and T. Rowe Price among others are great no-load fund groups for you to pick from. Just call the company’s toll-free number and ask for an application form.

It’s best to buy mutual funds from more than one no load fund group. It helps you diversify your investments a lot more for safety – to spread out the risk as it were. Janus Funds for instance with only invest in large business houses; you miss out on all the action with the smaller players that could potentially be a lot more profitable to you. There is another way to buy mutual funds yourself and two in addition – you go to an investment supermarket. This allows you to pick from hundreds of funds to park your investments in. Not only do you get to do this going through a fund supermarket like Charles Schwab, you get all your investment statements on one form. Of course there are fees involved here, a healthy one quarter of one percent. But for the peace of mind, it could be worth it.
 


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The Best Mutual Funds For Your Money

August 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

These days an inexperienced investor must be wondering where to put his hard earned savings. The equity market is clueless and the traditional avenues, although they are relatively less risky, provide meager yields. So the only choice that comes to the minds of investors at large is the Mutual Funds (MFs). These MFs provide an advantage of diversification of risk and the professional expertise of Fund Managers.

Now the question is, in which category of MFs to invest, equity or debt or balanced. Equity funds are relatively more risky because of the uncertainty and volatility in the equity markets. In today’s scenario, when the interest rates are rising, most of the bond funds are facing the brunt because the increased interest rates have pulled down the prices of most of the bonds and their portfolio has come down in value. There is no clear cut direction the interest rates might take in the future. So even the bond funds are a risk in such a scenario. This leaves only the balanced fund. Let us take a closer look at these balanced funds.

Balanced funds are those funds, which invest a certain percentage of their corpus in equity and rest in the bonds. This gives the benefits of both the equity investment and fixed income investment. In today’s scenario, it would be best to invest in a balanced scheme of a MF. The reason being, investing in such a MF would give the benefits of diversification across the class of securities.

After the introduction of index futures, it has become easier for the MFs to hedge themselves against the market risk. But even that hedge works up to a certain point of time, so the exposure to the equities should be limited. Also, there are balanced fund that take more exposure to certain sectors, similar some Indian MFs were doing assay to ride the ICE boom. But such funds are again more risky because the returns from such funds depend upon the performance of a particular sector.

The investment in bonds assures a steady stream of income without taking the entire risk inherent in the bond funds. Again, in today’s scenario, where the direction of interest rates is clueless, one should not take excessive exposure to bonds market. That’s why a balanced fund is an ideal investment in today’s scenario. A quick look at the returns from the schemes of two of the MFs would put the things in a better perspective.

Usually, in rising markets, the return on equities tend to be higher than other investments but they also carry the maximum risk. And now that the SEBI has put a 16% circuit strain, they have become all the more risky. A Balanced Fund provides the benefits of equity investments with limited risk and also a steady stream of income.

Therefore, in today’s market scenario, Balanced Mutual Fund is not having considerable exposure to any particular sector. But an investor needs to keep certain basic rules in mind while selecting balanced funds. Reliance Mutual Fund provides you the best convenient approach for the same. It also provides you with the detailed and exact meaning of mutual funds and so. So go ahead and invest in balanced funds!


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Top 9 Tips to Selecting a Fund of Hedge Funds Database

July 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Anyone who has the ability to successfully sail the many channels of capital within the hedge fund industry is deserving their weight in gold (and that’s lifting every day). There are two major components of marketing and selling a hedge fund which each act unvarying attention and refining.

1. Understand the DNA of the many distinct distribution channels open to hedge funds for raising capital and
2. Having an electronic hedge fund of fund of hedge fund database of the right people to call on within those channels.

While some populate develop their own databases from scratch this is often a retentive painful road with many days passing leaving voicemails with firms that have gone out of business, united, switched investment focus or charge too high of fees to work with. This has led to many hedge funding investing in fund hedge fund databases that are automatically updated with half a dozen pages of information on fees, structure, management information, etc. This trend with hedge fund databases goes along with the “outsource everything that is not our core competence” model that many both emerging managers and B+ players have taken.

If you need a list of hedge fund of funds or are thinking of purchasing a fund of hedge fund directory or database here are my top 9 tips:

1. Take the time to call or at least email the firm who offers a fund of hedge fund database, these will sometimes be referred to as fund of hedge fund or fof directories.
2. Only work with well known, reputable firms that specialize in providing hedge fund databases or hedge fund of fund databases. Avoid small shop fly-by-nighters at all costs
3. Take the time to really get familiar with the information provided within the database, ask for a sampleof what the information will look like. It really is an investment that could save you literally thousands of hours IF you pick the right hedge fund database for your business model. See a Hedge Fund of Fund of Hedge Fund Database Sample.
4. Ensure that the database is updated at least once a quarter, contact details and firm information gets old very quickly.
5. Expect to pay -,000 for a high quality hedge fund database, many cost around ,800 while others can cost up to ,000/year. Be sure and know the trade-offs of buying a physical database versus subscribing to one online. If you don’t have a hard copy of the data in Excel or Access format you may not be able to use it once a time-based subscription expires. For some firms this is fine, for others it would be a costly mistake.
6. Make sure the hedge fund database you use is compatible with your systems. Do you use SalesForce? Act? Goldmine? Excel? Word?(lord help you)
7. While you are kicking the tires of your potential new evade fund database make certain it has complete information on a firm. You don’t want to naming a firm asking if you can send over your PowerPoint presentation just to find away they are really a competitor or a division within another firm you called that same day.
8. Don’t steal a database. This may sound obvious, but it is common for employees to copy parts of a database for later use or use some other un-ethical means of obtaining database details. Don’t, it is not worth it. Always take the high road and you can stand behind every action you have ever taken.
9. This list merely contains 9 tips instead of 10 because this one is worth more than the rest combined. Ask hard oppugning when you are buying fund of hedge fund database. Ask how often your database detail will be updated. Ask exactly how many hedge funds are updating their information. Some databases will say that they have details on 9,000 hedge funds while the reality is that some of them haven’t updated their information in 4 years…make sure all of the data is being updated at least once a year.


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