The Excalibur Absolute Return Fund was up +1.77% in February, following a gain of +0.54% in January, bringing the Fund's 2009 return to +2.33%.

Excalibur noted that, although conditions are still challenging, current volatility levels are ideal for obtaining consistent returns without taking on unnecessary risks or leverage.

The manager also reported that the Fund's return for March is also looking positive. These impressive returns come after a gain of +12.23% in 2008 in extremely difficult market conditions.

The MQ Asia Long Short Fund, managed by Macquarie, was down -1.06% in February to bring 2009 YTD return to +0.28%.  Over the longer term, the fund returned -6.16% over 12 months, against a benchmark of the MSCI Asia Pacific index which lost 44.33% over the same period.

Interestingly MQ Asia recorded a net inflow of funds in February, following on from heavy net outflows between October and December last year, indicating renewed confidence from investors may be returning.

In the Fund's monthly report the manager also provided weighting and exposure breakdowns by stock and region, as well as in depth risk statistics. The hedge fund industry is often criticised for a lack of transparency, however managers such as MQ have consistently refuted this claim by providing such detailed fund information to the public.

The Wilson Investment Fund lost -3.68% in February, while WAM Active Ltd was up +0.60% and WAM Capital Ltd gained +1.10%. The 2009 returns for these funds now stand at -10.32%, -1.33% and -0.44% respectively.

Both WAM Active and WAM Capital remained lightly invested in February, with cash levels around the 70-80% mark. WAM Active also participated in a number of placements, including Lend Lease, IAG and Newcrest, and significantly reduced its exposure to the financial sector.

The Wilson Investment Fund ended February heavily weighted towards equities, particularly banks and diversified financials, with only 21% invested in fixed interest and cash.

AR Capital Management's Ascot Fund was up +0.96% in February, as the manager targeted stocks whose results would surprise the market during the reporting period.

The strategy proved successful, as the Fund outperformed the market by +6.5% for the month. Positive returns were gained from short positions in Amcor, Brambles, Incitec Pivot, News Corp and Sonic Health, and longs in JB Hi-Fi and Emeco Holdings. Negative returns came from Nufarm, OneSteel and the major banks. The manager maintained a book size of approximately 20% of FUM, citing the ASIC short selling ban, reporting season volatility and risk/return tradeoffs as reasons to remain conservative.

The Headland Global Diversified Fund was up an impressive +3.38% in February, after posting a loss of -1.20% in January.

The Fund's exposure to US and European government debt, weighted towards short dated (two year) maturities, provided gains as bonds rallied during February. The Fund also profited from falling commodity prices, including short positions in crude oil and natural gas. In FX markets the Fund closed its short exposure to British pounds.

The Herschel Absolute Return Fund posted a small loss of -0.68% in February, and is down -2.13% in 2009.

During February the Fund remained heavily weighted towards defensive large cap stocks with strong balance sheets, a strategy which is popular with many managers at the moment due to the ongoing economic uncertainty and bad news flooding the market. The only sector to provide a positive return was Energy (+2.7%), offset by heavy losses in Industrials (-21.2%), Property Trusts (-16.2%) and Utilities (-10%).

Kaptream says that there are good opportunities for the canny investor with their fund gaining 0.48% in January and 7.86% over the last year.

Kapstream says that its beta portfolio of highly rated fixed and floating securities is currently yielding 7.94% with other strategies including long AUD versus NZD, long volatility in the US, and Eurodollar put spread.

The two funds managed by St Helens Capital saw small losses in February, the Ailsa Fund down 0.71% and the Arran Fund 0.92% lower. However very good performance in January means that the Ailsa Fund is up 3.14% for the two months this year while the Arran Fund is up 2.71%.

Both funds use the same investment process and strategy. The Ailsa Fund is Australian dollar denominated and locally based, while the Arran Fund is USD denominated and registered in the Cayman Islands.

TechInvest's flagship Intercept Capital Fund posted a strong 1.2% return in February after taking into account fees and taxes. On an annualised basis the fund has returned 9.8% each year since its inception in March 2004.

The fund remains underinvested with 54% of gross assets being held in cash, 25.5% in long investments and the remaining 20.5% used for short sales. The manager said that the february result was largely driven by short positions more than offsetting losses on long investments. The main contributors for the month were short sales of Hemlett-Packard, Research in Motion and Boeing.

The Bennelong equity market neutral fund, which won the award for the best market neutral fund in Australia in 2008, has defied the shorting ban on financial stocks to report an impressive return of 7.88% in February to bring results for 2009 year-to-date to 14.02%.

Annualised performance over six years has been 23.97%, whilst performance in the past 12 months of arguably the most difficult market conditions since the great depression have been 30.54%.

Bennelong suffered some fund outflows in the final quarter of 2008 as offshore fund of funds struggled with liquidity issues, but has vindicated remaining investors' faith by outperforming the ASX200 by over 25% in just two months, and by 70% over the past year.

Bennelong manages just over A$50 million using a relative value pairs strategy which has provided 83% positive months since inception and has a rolling 12 month Sharpe ratio of 1.6.