Hedge funds are becoming more transparent, reporting performance and other information to the 12 major hedge fund databases. The number of hedge fund records rose by about 64% to about 57,000 at the end of 2005, according to Strategic Financial Solutions' annual analysis of hedge fund databases.
After combining the 12 databases and eliminating duplicates, SFS found about 12,250 single-strategy hedge funds and hedge funds of funds, with nearly 10,500 reporting performance. More than 8,100 single-manager hedge funds were identified; about 2,300 are clones of other funds. SFS found that single-manager funds had about $1.35 trillion. The 4,150 hedge funds of funds had about $700 billion, according to the SFS report.
In addition, SFS researchers found about 1,300 commodity trading advisers and managed futures funds with about $152 billion. About 3,500 hedge fund managers were counted, compared with the nearly 4,300 investment advisers registered with the SEC, "demonstrating that while not all hedge funds are yet being captured by hedge fund databases, a significant percentage are represented," according to the report.
