Stock Market Fears Another Hedge Fund Collapse

Christopher Wallace, a spokesman for Hedge Fund Research, says that “170 funds were liquidated during the first quarter of 2008. If that closure rate were to continue for the rest of the year, approximately 679 hedge funds would shut down.” That is against 987 launched, for a failure rate of almost 70%.

The first half of the year for the $1.9 tn hedge-fund industry was an excruciating one, as it posted its worst aggregate total return since the sector was first tracked in 1990. Just $33 bn in net new money came into the sector in the first half, versus $119 bn for the same period in 2007.