The Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law, Chris Bowen MP, has released draft regulations and commentary material in relation to the disclosure of short selling information under the Corporations Amendment (Short Selling) Act.

The new regulations maintain the existing requirement for sellers to advise the broker when placing an order for a short sale, for the broker to advise the ASX of all short sales transacted for each stock the same day, and for the ASX to publish the information by 0930 the following morning.  This will be known as Transactional Reporting which has previously been criticised for not showing net short positions.

Added to this will be a new level of reporting to be known as Positional Reporting, to come into effect on 1 April 2010.  Under this regulation each seller will be required to advise ASIC of each short position they hold within three days of taking that position, and each day thereafter that the position remains short.  ASIC will in turn aggregate this information and publish net short positions the following morning.

The Minister has called for submissions from interested parties on the new regulations, with a closing date of Friday 23rd October.

The Cumulative Performance chart on page 1 starkly illustrates the role of absolute return strategies in reducing the volatility of equity markets. Like insurance, the cost of the "hedge" to protect large down side moves will inevitably have a negative effect in strong bull markets.

Over the past few years, and prior to 2008, some funds' solution to that problem was leverage. Sadly, leverage can have dangerous results in sharply falling markets in the wrong hands.

For detailed analysis of performance for each strategy, industry comment and ranking tables, please open the attached .pdf file.

ATTACHED FILESSeptember absolute return and hedge fund review (pdf format)

AFM’s Equity based absolute return index looks set to better its previous high water mark, with the index now positive over a 12 month basis, against the ASX200 which is still down over 12% since 1st September 2008. Once again August results from some high conviction managers, particularly those who suffered during the GFC, were particularly pleasing with some returning over 10% for the month.

Australia's equity based Absolute Return funds posted positive performance for investors of 4.51% for the month of July, taking 2009 year to date performance to 12.69%, closely matching the ASX200 accumulation index which has returned 14.03% YTD. Over a 12 month period the ASX has still lost 14.73% whilst equity based absolute return funds are down just 1.90%.

For detailed analysis of performance for each strategy, industry comment and ranking tables, please open the attached .pdf file.

ATTACHED FILESAugust absolute return and hedge fund review (pdf format)

Merricks Multi Strategy fund has returned +0.8% in July to take 2009 YTD returns to 3.3%.

The Fund, which was established in January 2008, invests in three lowly correlated strategies, Event Driven, Market Neutral and Soft Commodities (agriculture) focused on the developed markets in Asia. All three strategies produced positive returns in July.

Macquarie's MQ Asian Long Short fund has reported a 4.75% gain for the month as the region's markets continued to rally in July, taking their 12 month performance to +2.63%. YTD performance for 2009 is +9.52%.

The manager noted that the fund only lost money on two days during the month, with the largest loss just 0.1%, and recorded gains for each of the first 9 days when the markets were in negative territory.

Annualised performance for the Cayman based fund, which has US$101m in FUM, is +11.57% since inception in October 2005.

The MQ Asian fund uses a quantitative strategy to invest in over 600 individual positions across 12 countries in the Asian region.

Platinum Asset Management, Australia's largest absolute return manager with over $14 billion in FUM, records positive returns for all eight underlying funds in July.

The $3bn Platinum Asia Fund returned 8.40% for the month, to bring 2009 YTD performance to +35.5%, 12 month returns to 19.85% and annualised returns since March 2003 to 23.16%.

Best performing of Platinum's funds for the month was the European Fund which returned 8.50%, to bring 2008 YTD to +15.07%, 12 month returns to +2.21% and annualised returns since inception in July 1998 to 11.15%.

Platinum's largest fund, the International Shares Fund, with $7.6 bn in FUM returned +6.4% for the month, +13.62% in 2009 YTD, +25.79% in the past 12 months, and +14.74% annualised since inception in May 1995.

Shareholders in the ASX listed Platinum Asset Management (ASX: PTM) should also be happy with the results as the manager's performance fees of 16.5% above respective MSCI hurdles are not subject to any high water mark.

Pengana Capital, which manages a range of strategies both in Australia and offshore has produced positive returns from all seven of its underlying absolute return funds in July.

Best performing of the funds was the Pengana Global Resources fund which returned 8.60% for the month, to take YTD performance to +22.78% after a disappointing 2008, and annualised returns since March 2007 to +8.86%.

Pengana's Australian Equity long/short fund also notched up a respectable 8.50% in July, to take 2009 YTD returns to +24.52%, -4.09% over the past 12 months, and 9.29% annualised since inception in May 2004.

Excalibur Funds Management AUD/JPY FX strategy lost 0.11% in the last few days of July, having been in positive territory up until that point. The fund remains +3.15% in 2009 YTD, with 12 month performance +5.12% and an annualised performance since inception in July 2006 of +19.09%.

The fund's strategy predominantly involves short term technical contrarian signals in the Australian and New Zealand currencies and their crosses. the strategy has a focus on risk management and capital preservation with particular attention given to the relationship between volatility and leverage.

In what the manager described as an extremely difficult month the fund also reported an increase in FUM to US$79m.

Blue Fin Capital, which uses short term quantitative trading models for their FX and Commodity managed accounts, maintained returns for 2009 YTD in positive territory for July, although returns for the month were largely flat.

The FX strategy which has been operating since January 2002 and has returned an annualised 9.53% since that time, is +3.94% YTD in 2009, and +12.02% over the past 12 months.

The commodity strategy, established in April 2007, has returned 11.33% annualised, is +0.48% in 2009 YTD, and +0.82% over the past 12 months

View the detailed profile for Blue Fin's Managed Commodities Account.

View the detailed profile for Blue Fin's Managed FX Account.