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.

Commodity Strategies have produced a positive return for both their long only and long short strategy, with a +0.85% (+10.62% YTD) for the Long Only program, and +0.47% (+23.16% YTD) for the long short version.

Of interest was be sharply different attribution of performancebetween the two strategies: The long only strategy achieved 100% of its returns from gold, while the long short strategy was broadly based with the majority of returns coming from the energy sector (with the exception of natural gas). The long short strategy was active in over 20 commodities across the broad sectors of metals, energy, agricultural and grains.

Pengana's Australian Equity Long Short fund returned -10.1% net of fees in November to bring 12 month performance to -32.3%. This compared with the ASX 300 accumulation index which was -6.3% for the month and -40.5% over a 12 month period.

The manager noted that approximately 50% of the negative performance for November was caused by the mar- to-market impact of the fund's exposure to hybrid securities. Other managers have noted that hybrid securities did not benefit from the rally that occurred in the last few days of the month, and thus dragged down performance.

Fortitude Capital, the Australian-based equity market neutral manager, has continued to demonstrate a consistent positive performance for every month of 2008, with a November performance of +0.21%for the onshore fund to take them to +11.88% YTD.

Fortitude's offshore Cayman fund was -0.32%, taking YTD performance to positive 7.4%.

Fortitude, which was awarded the 2008 Australian Hedge Fund Manager of the year award by AIMA, is a multi-strategy market neutral manager.

Blue Fin Capital, which specialises in trading spot foreign exchange markets and commodity futures using a quant trading strategy, has reported -1.03% for November and +9.48% YTD for the commodities strategy, and -3.80% and +8.48% YTD for the FX strategy.

In a statement to the ASX, the listed absolute return fund HFA Accelerator Plus Limited (HAP) has announced an Asset Realisation Program in which it will redeem all of its leveraged instruments (i.e. notes and swaps). HAP is undertaking the program in order to protect shareholder value in the current environment.

HAP stated: "The HAP investment model is predicated on leveraging HAP's capital 3 times as an investment in the Lighthouse Diversified Fund, a diversified offshore fund of hedge funds.

The HAP model was designed to provide superior returns in a wide variety of hedge funds with different investment strategies. The model was successful during periods of high capital market liquidity and market confidence in the global economy. However, the HAP model has underperformed during the sustained deterioration of global capital markets over the past 12 months."

HAP is listed in the AFM database under a Global Diversified strategy and recorded a return of negative 20.89% in October bringing its year-to-date (YTD) return to negative 52.79%.

To read the full statement, click here.

The Reserve Bank issued the following statement at 14:30 AEST Tuesday 2nd December 2008:

"At its meeting today, the Board decided to reduce the cash rate by a further 100 basis points, to 4.25 per cent, effective 3 December 2008.

Recent actions by governments and central banks to stabilise their respective financial systems have begun to take effect. Nonetheless, financial market sentiment remains fragile, as evidence accumulates of weak economic conditions in the major countries and a significant slowing in many emerging countries. Commodity prices have fallen further. This, combined with the likelihood of below-trend growth in the global economy, suggests that global inflation will moderate significantly in 2009.

The Australian economy has been more resilient than other advanced economies, but recent data nonetheless indicate that a significant moderation in demand and activity has been occurring. With confidence affected by the financial turbulence and a decline in the terms of trade now under way, more cautious behaviour by both households and businesses is likely to see private demand remain subdued in the near term. With that outlook, and with capacity pressures now easing, it is likely that inflation in Australia will soon start to fall. Global disinflationary forces will assist in this regard, though the depreciation of the exchange rate means that the decline of inflation to the target could take longer than would otherwise have been the case.

Weighing up the international and domestic developments of recent months, the Board judged that a further significant reduction in the cash rate was warranted now, to take monetary policy to an expansionary setting. As a result of today’s decision, the cash rate will be at its previous cyclical low point. Given trends in money market yields, most lending rates should fall significantly and will also reach below-average levels.

There has now been a major easing in monetary policy over the past few months. Together with the spending measures announced by the Government, and a large fall in the Australian dollar exchange rate, significant policy stimulus will be supporting demand over the year ahead. The Board will continue to monitor developments and make adjustments as needed to promote sustainable growth consistent with achieving the 2-3 per cent inflation target over time."

October was another difficult month for Australia's Absolute Return and Hedge Fund sector with widespread deleveraging across the globe and across almost every investor group and asset class.

The average October return of single managers across the sector was negative 5.04% with 86% of single managers’ funds having reported to date. This made October the worst month this year for the sector. On a year-to-date (YTD) cumulative basis the performance of the average Absolute Return fund in the database is negative 12.30%.

Positive returns were achieved by 28% of the sector while 81% of the sector outperformed the benchmark S&P/ASX200 Accumulation Index. The ASX200 fell 12.61% for the month, and according to Mercer Investment Consulting the median Long Only fund lost 11.3% in October, and 35.7% over the past 12 months.

To read the full report download the file below.

Wallace Absolute Return Limited, an ASX Listed Investment Company (LIC) recorded a negative return of -2.47% for October, bringing 12 month performance to -18%.

Meanwhile the Wallace Australia Opportunities Fund, a Cayman based unlisted fund using broadly the same Equity Market Neutral strategy, returned a positive 8.15% and 36% over the past 12 months.

The Asia-Pacific Asset Management Asia fund returned 18.21% in October to take year-to-date performance to +11.69%.

The manager noted in their monthly report that they made gains on the currency through an active hedge strategy although the underlying managers in the fund had also performed well in difficult conditions during October.

Meanwhile the Asia-Pacific Asset Management Australian Fund returned -0.77% for the month and -5.03% year-to-date.

Both funds are open to retail investors in Australia.