Kapstream’s Absolute Return Income Fund achieved a small gain of 0.77% in November bringing the year-to-date cumulative performance to positive 6.86%.

Kapstream employs a fixed income strategy and aims to generate absolute returns over multiple business cycles by incorporating high quality/high conviction trades while taking into account the global macroeconomic view and variables such as duration, yield curve and volatility which support the research and analysis.

The Fund Manager outlined some key themes for 2009 including that rates will be low for a long time and investors should shift focus from duration to high quality, retailers will limp through Christmas, oil will continue to fall, the US auto industry will get bailed out, and corporations (especially banks) will continue to issue government guaranteed debt (i.e. bonds) via the Fed acting as the new monoline insurer.

Regal’s Tasman Market Neutral Fund finished up 0.97% for the month bringing the cumulative year-to-date loss to 7.10% while the Amazon Market Neutral Fund was down 0.40% for the month bringing the cumulative year-to-date loss to 7.71%.

The Regal funds aim to maximise returns with only moderate risk and little correlation to equity markets. The Fund Manager stated: “Compared to the volatility in the market in November (over 50% on an annualised basis), Tasman’s volatility was an annualised 15%, largely a result of our lower than average gross gearing levels and tighter than normal sector hedging.”

Allard Partners reported negative returns for November with a loss of 4.70% (negative 34.88% year-to-date) in their Growth Fund and a loss of 3.40% in (negative 17.49% year-to-date) in their Investment Fund.

Allard Partners employ an equity long-only strategy investing in quoted companies in the Asia Pacific region.

The Austral Equity (onshore) Event Driven Fund returned +0.92% for November to take year-to-date performance to +0.84%, and +13.44% annualised since inception in 1997.

Austral was one of the first managers to move broadly into cash at the beginning of 2008, and as such was spared much of the carnage that has occurred in equity markets since that time. However the manager changed the position in November, dropping cash from over 95% to under 45%, investing mainly in interest rate securities. Long equity exposure remains low at 4.6%.

Meanwhile the manager announced that due to the high level of redemptions in the Opportunities Fund (domiciled in the Caymans) they had recently sold all securities, moving to 100% cash, with capital being returned to investors by 12 December. This was another case where redemption pressure on investors was the overriding issue rather than performance as the fund in Australian dollar terms was positive year-to-date.

Bennelong's long short equity market neutral fund returned +5.78% in November, to give a year-to-date return of +10.25%, and an annualised return since inception in 2003 of +22.63%.

Against a background in the Australian equity market which saw only one sector record a positive contribution during November (property +0.2%), the manager provided strong performance noting that the lifting of the ban on short selling mid month allowed an opportunity to open new positions, and replenish various existing ones.

Looking forward Bennelong see the possibility of a near-term bounce, however remained cautious and maintain a conservative stands within the portfolio and a tilt towards stocks with a solid track record rather than those that simply appear cheap.

The Hayberry Australian Equity Fund fell by -13.99% in November to bringing 2008 year-to-date performance to -27.83%. Returns for the past two months have fallen by over 35%, spoiling what had been a positive year-to-date to the end of September.

St Helen's Capital and Australian-based equity long short manager has returned a positive 1.64% return from November bringing year-to-date performance to -6.63%, against the ASX 200 which finished the month -6.9% and -45.2% off its highs of November 2007.

St Helens, an Australian Equity Long/Short manager, noted in their monthly report that it is reasonable to say that the US and Australian markets have seen their absolute lows and probably amongst the more optimistic of managers who foresee the bottom of the US real economy occurring as early as mid-2009.

Whilst not forecasting a sustained bull market from here, St Helens believe that opportunities will occur in a range trading market and think that the panic redemption selling seen over the past 3 to 4 months will move from " sell at any price" to " sell the rallies".

Platinum Asset Management, Australia's largest Absolute Return fund manager with over $14b in total assets under management, provided investors a range of returns for November , with the flagship Platinum International Fund, a global equity long/short fund with over $7 billion in FUM recording -1.0% for the month against the MSCI which fell 5.3%.

Over a 12 month period the International fund has fallen -9.2% against the MSCI World Index which has fallen 25.1%.

Across all funds, Platinum outperformed generally, even though most funds were in negative territory. The best performing fund was the Platinum Japan fund which was positive 0.70% and has now returned over 13% over the past four months.

The Elstree Enhanced Income Fund returned a negative performance for November 2008 of -13.46%, bringing their 12 month performance to -33.59%.

The manager noted that the ASX All Ordinaries accumulation index was down one point during the month as much a 16%, and the hybrid market in which they invest followed the equity market lower. However due to the lag with which hybrid securities frequently exhibit, they did not participate in the equity market rally over the last few days of the month.

Looking forward the manager is expecting the banks to commence issuing equity to replenish damage caused by credit losses. Noting that the banks have yet to raise equity, the manager is expecting them to do so, reminding investors that during the 1990's the major banks lost around 16% of shareholders equity and around 1% of assets, while dividends fell by around 45%.

Plato Asset Management's market neutral fund, has just managed to return a positive performance for November of +0.01%, although two other Plato funds, the Core Composite, and the Equity 130/30 each lost -6.44% and -6.17% respectively for the month.

The November performances from Plato continue the trend which has been in place all year. Whilst the market neutral fund is +1.52% YTD, against the ASX which is down over 40%, the core (long only) fund is -39.99% and the 130/30 has lost 40.96% since its inception in January 2008.