Hedge Crunch Financial

Optimism has taken hold of hedge fund managers lately as the major indexes, such as the Eurekahedge Fund Index and MSCI World Index show gains in the month of July. This month’s gain continues a 5 month upward trend for hedge fund managers.

According to the Eurekhedge Index, July posted a 2.1 percent gain, while the MSCI showed a remarkable 8.4% rise. The year to date improvement comes to 12 percent for the Eurekahedge and 14 percent for MSCI.

Hedge fund managers are feeling relief to finally be leaving the difficult times of the 2008 financial markets. They are hopeful that the rest of 2009 will leave the recession behind in the dust bowl of history. Many analysts view 2008 as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of late 1929 and the 30′s.

We expect some of the hedge fund managers we have been covering to react to the hopeful news, and we will keep you posted as to what Gregg Hymowitz of EnTrust Capital has  to say about the current economic trend.

As our financial crisis continues to become more complex and difficult to fathom, many different types of funds are being discussed in the news. One type of fund that is frequently discussed is the Taft-Hartley Pension Fund. These funds came into existence as a result of an act of congress in 1947 as part of an amendment to the famous Wagner act of 1935, the comprehensive and history making legislation giving workers many rights, especially to form unions and other benefits, also known as the National Labor Relations Act.

Today over 6% of all pension fund assets are of the Taft-Hartley variety, representing 420 billion dollars worth of investment capital. Since this is certainly a significant amount of money, it is worthwhile to learn a bit about what these funds are.

Taft-Hartley pension funds are the way companies provide benefits to their employees at retirement. The funds are composed of contributions which the employer makes on behalf of their employees, contractually negotiated by the union that the worker is a member of; and the gains or losses that the fund is subject to while it is invested by the fund’s trustees.

Trustees are appointed in equal number by both the union and the employer, and are responsible for overseeing the investment and deciding what benefits the plan can afford upon retirement.

Usually investment firms are given the responsibility of overseeing the fund’s investment strategy as the trustee. There are many firms which oversee Taft-Hartley pension funds, including EnTrust Capital Inc., Gregg Hymowitz, managing partner; McMorgan & Company, John F. Santaguida managing director, and consulting firms, such as Milliman, which advise trustees on how to focus on targeting the investment returns assumed by the plan.