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Funds of Hedge Funds (FHF) are perceived to be the premier choice of institutional investors for first-time allocations into the alternative investment asset class. While many papers cover the bright side of FHF investing, we in this paper empirically investigate the maximum drawdowns of FHF. Therefore, we analyze time series and descriptive variables of 649 FHF drawn from the Lipper TASS Hedge Fund database for the time period January 1996 to August 2007. Our empirical results suggest that (1) the number as well as the magnitude of drawdowns decreases with increasing experience of the FHF, (2) the average recovery is higher with older FHF, (3) there is no difference in the magnitude of a maximum drawdown between small and large FHF, (4) the higher a maximum drawdown of an FHF the longer it takes to recover, and (5) most of the maximum drawdowns happen at times of turmoil in financial markets. Therefore our findings especially question the acclaimed ability of FHF to deliver absolute returns and also show that the beta risks involved with FHF are high. The advantages of FHF should thus rather be their low long-term correlations to traditional asset classes as well as their low volatility.

Die pharmakokinetischen Eigenschaften des Edelgases Xenon (Xe) lassen eine schnellere Elimination und schnelleres Erwachen nach Anästhesie im Vergleich zu Lachgas (N2O) erwarten. Die vorliegende Studie vergleicht an 60 Patienten, die sich Operationen an der unteren Extremität unterzogen, die Aufwachzeit nach Beendigung der Anästhetikazufuhr und den Verlauf der Erholung von kognitiver und psychomotorischer Funktion nach Xe-Desfluran (Des) oder N2O-Des Anästhesie. Zur Bestimmung oben genannter Funktionen wurden visuelle Analogskalen, Zahlensymboltest und Triegertest benutzt. Die Aufwachzeit war bei Xe-Des im Vergleich zu N2O-Des signifikant kürzer, bei den anderen Tests ergab sich kein signifikanter Unterschied. Comparing the pharmacokinetic properties of the noble gas Xenon (Xe) with nitrous oxide (N2O) a faster elimination and a faster recovery after anesthesia can be expected. 60 patients undergoing orthopedic surgery of the lower limb, anesthetised either with Xe-desflurane or N2O-desflurane were investigated. Recovery time after finishing supply of the anesthetics and recovery of kognitive and psychomotoric functions were compared using several Visual Analogue Scales, the Digit-Symbol-Substitution-Test and the Trieger-Dot-Test. Recovery time was significantly shorter after Xe-desflurane compared with N2O-desflurane, the other tests showed no significant difference.