U.S. hedge funds brace for worst year since financial crisis

``"Hedge funds are reeling from a relentless rout that has all but killed a year's worth of alpha in a matter of two weeks," Stanley Altshuller, founding partner at research firm Novus, wrote in a report... he sudden, sharp drops could prompt some investors to pull their money out, even though the average fund is still doing better than the wider market, down 3 percent for the year, compared with a 7 percent drop in the Standard & Poor's Index, according to preliminary data from Hedge Fund Research.''