Similarly, they trade natural gas on both futures exchanges and the North American OTC markets. To round out their participation, they trade both gasoline and heating oil on NYMEX and gasoil on the IPE.The Directory, "Hedge Funds in Energy" is available as a Utilipoint Infogrid available on the company's website at http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/infogrids.asp for $995 for an annual subscription with 11 monthly updates. About Global Change Associates, Inc.Global Change Associates Inc, is based in New York (www.global-change.com), and is a leading consultancy in energy and environmental commodity risk management. GCA is at the forefront of revealing changes in energy trading and risk management, and has been the market leader in energy trading, energy e-commerce, and Enron competitive analysis studies. Company chairman, Peter Fusaro is the author of New York Times best seller What Went Wrong at Enron and has authored six books on energy and environmental trading and will release Energy Hedging in Asia this fall through MacMillan.

About UtiliPoint International, Inc.Utilipoint International Inc. (www.utilipoint.com) with origins dating to 1933, is a leader in providing research-based consulting to the utility industry. UtiliPoint analysts have provided strategic business plans and studies on information technology, and its impact on utility operations. Direct experiences include work in trading/risk management, outsourcing, CIS, billing, CRM, metering, AMR, demand response, work/outage management, supply chain, ERP, call centers, rates/pricing products, and IT architectural design. The firm is also the publisher of IssueAlert?, an analysis of the utility and energy industry's hot topics sent to over 34,000 utility and energy executives daily.For further information on this brand new directory please contact Gary Vasey e-mail protected from spam bots.???.

Maybe they thinkthat their potential customers are too dumb toknow that hedge funds are a poor investment. Could be. The Securities and Exchange Commissionis trying to protect investors ? I think? To be able to buy into a hedge fund thesmallest investor must have a net worth of$1,000,000 and an income of more than $200,000per year. Maybe the SEC doesn't think thesefolks are bright enough to know a good thingwhen they see it. There are other groups that are major investors with the hedge funds.

Literally billionsof dollars are invested by university endowments,charitable trusts, state and corporate pensionplans. Could it be that they have a betterreturn than regular mutual funds? Naw! The mediawould tell you wouldn't they? The media is there to report the facts. It is hard to believe that just because a largeportion of their income is from advertisingrevenues of mutual funds that they would be laxabout this. If you were a fund manager and your fund was under performing and it was reported in thelocal paper, TV, or radio would you pay them tocarry your advertising? You sure would not wantto be compared with performance of a hedge fund. What is it that makes the difference of astandard mutual fund with a hedge fund? Why doesthe smart money gravitate to them? One word.Performance.

A regular hedge fund manager ispaid on HOW MUCH money he has in his fund andnot on how much he makes for the investor. Thehedge fund manager is paid a percentage of thePROFITS he makes for the investors. No profitmeans no bonus so he better do the job or hewill be out of a job. Smart money moves. Itmoves to where the profit is being made.

The SEC will not allow standard mutual fundmanagers to be compensated in this manner. Theirclaim is that it will be too dangerous for thesmall investor. Hog wash! If a fund is losingmoney the little guy should be selling hiscurrent funds like the smart money and finding abetter performing fund. None of the mediarecommend this to the little guy. My guess is there are enough intelligent fund managers who would like to be paid forperformance and would set up no-load funds toattract investors.

The SEC seems to think moreof the funds than they do of the smallerinvestors. It is a shame you can't check the advertisingclaims of standard mutual funds against the returns of hedge funds..

Fusaro. They will share some of their latest research on energy hedge funds."Oil prices continue at record levels and there remains speculation in the media regarding the role played by hedge funds and other speculators," reports Dr. Gary M. Vasey, who is VP Trading & Risk Management Practice for energy industry analysis and consulting firm UtiliPoint International, Inc. "Our online seminar will explain what an energy hedge fund is, why hedge funds are interested in the energy industry and what impact the funds are having on energy prices.""Energy is now in the spotlight for hedge funds offering great upside potential and tremendous price risk.

Today, investors are lining up to enter emerging markets such as coal, renewables, carbon and water trading," said Peter Fusaro, Chairman of New York-based energy risk management consulting firm, Global Change Associates.To sign up for the online seminar held in conjunction with PGS Energy Training, visit http://www.pgsenergy.com/online/f201.html to register and for more information. About the Energy Hedge Fund Center (www.energyhedgefunds.com)The Energy Hedge Fund Center is the first free online community specifically created for those interested in monitoring and understanding the activities of hedge funds in the energy industry. In our community users have access to news, articles, polls and other information on energy hedge funds and their activities. Members of the community receive a daily email highlighting site updates. The energy hedge fund directory is also available for subscription at the site..

A recent important trend identified by EHFC analysts has been the rise in interest in energy by fund of funds which bring more conservative investor in to the energy industry. The number of fund of funds with a natural resources and/or energy focus has tripled in the last three months."The recent interest in energy on the part of fund of funds represents a maturation of hedge fund activity in the energy industry," reports Dr. Gary M. Vasey. "Fund of funds generally offer more conservative investors access to a more diversified portfolio of energy and energy-related hedge funds often institutional investors.

To date, many of the energy hedge funds appear to have been funded by wealthy private investors and family money.""We still anticipate over 300 new energy hedge funds entering the markets this year. They will trading energy commodities but also involved in distressed debt, carbon, emissions, and renewable energy trading as well as water trading," said best selling author Mr. Peter C. Fusaro, and Chairman of Global Change Associates.The Directory of Energy Hedge Funds is available on an annual subscription basis from the Energy Hedge Fund Center website at www.energyhedgefunds.com. EHFC staff provides regular online seminar briefings on hedge funds in the energy industry and the next online seminar is scheduled for May 10th, 2005.

For more details, please visit the Energy Hedge Fund Center.About the Energy Hedge Fund Center (www.energyhedgefunds.com)The Energy Hedge Fund Center (EHFC) is the first free web community specifically created for those interested in monitoring and understanding the activities of hedge funds in the energy industry. In our community users have access to news, articles, polls and other information on energy hedge funds and their activities. Members of the community receive a daily email highlighting site updates. The energy hedge fund directory is also available for subscription at the site. The EHFC was co-founded by Mr.

Peter C. Fusaro of Global Change Associates and Dr. Gary M. Vasey of UtiliPoint International and it is actively moderated by Fusaro and Vasey..

In other words, a fund can have 25% of its holdings in a single stock, but the remaining 75% must follow the 5% rule. The 5% rule was created by the Investment Company Act Requirement. Fund managers claim that this hampers their performance instead of admitting that they are in the business just to clip you for high fees while the mutual fund under-performs the general market. The truth is that the big killer is the herd mentality of active fund managers. They follow each other around buying and selling the same junk.

They flock to the same familiar companies and often overlook the new, obscure companies that show great promise. They take great comfort in knowing that, even if their fund misses out on a great opportunity, most of the others in its group will too. They also know that they can pull their huge fees out during the whole time your retirement savings are parked in their fund. Over the years they spend a lot of marketing money to make you think that they actually care.This is certainly not the attitude I want the manager of my retirement to have! You should be asking your self why the mutual funds don't just mimic the same portfolio stock composition as a major index like the S&P 500 stock market index. Well, some have and those that are indexed out perform actively managed funds at the minimum management cost.

For this reason I strongly recommend that if you can only buy mutual funds as in the case of the 401(k) then restrict your purchases to indexed funds like the Vanguard 500 (VFINX)..

The Barclay Group compiles alternative investment databases that track and analyse the performance of more than 4200 hedge fund and managed futures investment programs worldwide. Alternative Funds Head Mainstream"With $1 trillion under management now, and with predictions of $4 trillion by 2010, the alternative funds industry is establishing itself as part of the financial mainstream," says O'Kelly. "We recognise that funds have to become more agile in how they adopt and apply new investment strategies and techniques in the market place. It demands that asset allocation be based on a solid foundation of disciplined research and analysis, portfolio construction, client reporting, investment decision support, financial innovation, and due diligence."For more details, visit www.finlab.com and www.barclaygrp.com.About FinLab SAFinLab is a software solutions company that develops, distributes and supports one of the world's most advanced systems for investment research, analysis and asset allocation for both alternative and traditional funds. FinLab was formed in 1999 and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.The company's product suite PackHedge? is a series of state of the art modular software tools that provide an unmatched multi-source, multi-currency, multi frequency qualitative and quantitative data management model.

PackHedge? includes data aggregation, extensive statistical analysis and charting, a multi-dimensional query engine, complete pro-forma portfolio simulation, comprehensive fund of funds portfolio management, and customizable reporting capabilities.About The Barclay GroupThe Barclay Group, established in 1985, serves institutional and high net worth clients in the field of hedge fund and managed futures performance measurement and portfolio management. Barclay's indices are utilized worldwide as performance benchmarks for the hedge fund and managed futures industries. The Barclay Alternative Investment Database tracks the performance of more than 4,200 hedge fund and managed futures investment programs. Based on 21 years of experience in data collection, research and consulting services, Barclay has established long-standing relationships with many of these managers..

As a result, the number of hedge funds has grown dramatically the last few years. Many successful mutual fund managers have left fund companies and started their own hedge funds. Since hedge fund managers often receive as much as 20% of the gains, the managers can make a lot more money.Hedge funds are normally structured as a partnership or a limited liability company. As such, only ?accredited' investors can participate. An accredited investor is someone with over $1,000,000 in investable assets or an annual income over $200,000 per year.Not a lot of people fall into this category.

And Wall Street knew those high returns would be an easy sell to other investors. So they created a fund of hedge funds. Think of it as a mutual fund that invests in hedge funds. Voila, small investors now have access.Don't let the attraction of high returns tempt you into investing in a hedge fund or a fund of hedge funds. I believe they are unsuitable for almost every investor.

Here's why.First, those sky-high returns were achieved when there were a small number of hedge funds pursuing each strategy. Now there are so many hedge funds pursuing similar strategies, the returns aren't there. Worse, it's forcing managers to pursue even riskier strategies.It's like being at an auction. If you are the only one bidding you'll probably get a great deal. If you are one of a hundred different bidders there's not much chance of getting a bargain.

In fact, if you don't watch out you might even pay more than the item is worth. That's what has happened in the hedge fund world.Very few hedge funds have current returns anywhere near those stellar returns of the past. In fact, it's been reported that the majority of hedge funds have actually performed worse than the market indexes for much of this year. Some have even closed down and returned the money to their investors because they couldn't meet their objective.Hedge funds have very high costs. Whereas an expensive mutual fund might charge a 1.5% management fee per year, the typical hedge fund charges 2%.

Plus, the hedge fund manager will typically take 20% of any gains. It's even worse with a fund of hedge funds because there is an additional layer of fees. You take the risk, they take the reward.Hedge funds and funds of hedge funds have little regulation and even less disclosure. The potential for fraud is high and transparency is low. Investors are trusting someone they don't know to handle their money and will have little idea what they are doing with it.

Big money investors get info the small investor can't.Most hedge funds require that you remain invested for a set period of time?say 1 year. If investors start withdrawing their money, it may force the manager to sell investments at a loss, harming the investors that remain.Since hedge funds with long histories of stellar returns are closed to new investors, you'll have to take a chance on managers with little or no experience in the Wild West world of hedge fund investing.Lastly, for those who must have alternative strategies, there are many options to short the market or to get double the market return through mutual funds offered by Rydex and Profunds. These mutual funds are transparent, regulated and much, much less expensive. Even so, they still aren't for the faint of heart!So I recommend investors let the hedge fund bandwagon pass them by.Have a financial question? Send me an email and I'll personally respond, free of charge. Go to www.guardingyourwealth.com and click on ?Ask Jeff'.In addition to being a nationally syndicated columnist and Certified Financial Planning Practitioner, Mr.

Voudrie provides personal, private money management services to clients nationwide.Looking for an energetic expert who is passionate about financial and wealth management? Mr. Voudrie is an excellent speaker who will excite and inspire your audience. Mr. Voudrie is available for a limited number of speaking engagements, television appearances and radio talk shows. For booking information, email e-mail protected from spam bots.Related Articles can be found at www.guardingyourwealth.com under the Guarding Your Wealth Article Archive..

Financial managers now have a definite digital trail of all electronic communication, providing a fail safe and fully searchable archive which complies with new hedge fund regulations. Furthermore, Archive InSite has also been engineered to easily evolve with any shifts or changes in future regulations. "Archive InSite is structured to minimize the time for implementation, as well as delivering the most robust feature set. Hedge Funds need security and speed, we provide both." Steve Finnern ? Director of Sales and Operations, Smarsh Inc. "We have developed an archiving solution which will provide any hedge fund with the ability to meet the new regulations in an efficient manner.

Compliance managers will find the greatest benefit in the simplicity of the set-up and day-to-day use of the solution." Archive InSite allows hedge fund managers to spend less time worrying about how to address these regulations and lets them stay focused on their primary goal, growing their fund. Archive InSite maintains regulatory compliance with very low maintenance. Now, hedge fund managers can leverage all of the archiving solutions that other segments of the financial industry have been using for several years.???? "We know that the regulations are not highly favored by those within the industry," Steve Marsh, CEO. "We wanted to provide a solution that would make the transition to complying with these regulations as painless as possible, and we believe we have accomplished that goal with Archive InSite."???? For more information on Smarsh Inc.'s Smarsh Archive InSite?, please visit www.smarsh.com or call 1-866-SMARSH-1. About Smarsh Inc.Founded in 2001, Smarsh is a privately held global provider of technology solutions for the financial services industry.

Smarsh provides financial applications as well as completely managed and custom email hosting and messaging compliance solutions to brokerages, banks, trading floors, and investment management firms. Smarsh is headquartered in Portland, or and has regional offices in New York and San Francisco. For more information on Smarsh, please visit www.smarsh.com. Contact:Stephen Pope866-SMARSH-1.

One technique is risk arbitrage. Basically, buying stocks in a company that is in the process of a merger and acquisition. Companies announce a specific price the day of the merger, so if the stock is under the stated value before the day of the merger, it is a relatively safe plan to buy and wait. This does pose some risk, because some mergers do not go through. Hedge funds are very secretive and do not have to disclose their activities to third parties.

This allows hedge funds to be free from the regulations that mutual funds have to adhere to. This can be considered as beneficial because fund managers will perform better because they see a direct profit from the success of the fund. In mutual funds, this is not so. Also, large companies can move undisclosed amounts of money and gain significantly without authorities noticing. Actual numbers are not known, but HFR (hfr.com) reported that at the end of the second quarter in 2003, there were 5660 hedge funds managing $665 billion dollars around the world.

The sheer magnitude of this number is shocking, but demonstrates the massive profits that can be made from successful hedge fund strategy. Unfortunately for secretive businesses that enjoy the secrecy of hedge funds, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is attempting to successfully implement the requirement that hedge funds be registered with the SEC. If this continues and is successfully implemented, then all of the advantages to secrecy will be lost. One negative aspect of the non-regulation of hedge funds is the fact that there are no official hedge fund statistics.

Most hedge fund holders are large companies and so little is knows about their financial movements. Hedge funds are based in offshore jurisdictions, making them seem even more suspicious. Unlike mutual funds that have a base in large cities like New York, Hedge Funds are based in places like Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and the Virgin Islands. It may seem strange to call your fund manager in Bermuda rather than to call someone in New York City. Another negative aspect of hedge funds is their high price tag.

Hedge funds seem to be more suited for large businesses and companies that are merging than they are suited for the average worker. Hedge funds usually require an extravagant amount of money for initial purchase. If someone does have the money, however, they can gain even more money with this sometimes high-risk venture. Hedge funds have the potential to help an investor gain quite a bit of money. However, hedge funds undergo a great amount of scrutiny because of the lack of regulations and the general secrecy surrounding hedge funds.

Hedge funds are based offshore and have been rumored to hold as much as $665 billion. Some reports even state that at one point, 39 firms were managing hedge funds worth $1.1 trillion. These startling numbers show that hedge funds can be quite lucrative..

Your instructors are best selling author of What Went Wrong at Enron and energy risk management strategist Peter C. Fusaro and Dr. Gary M. Vasey; Utilipoint's guru on energy trading & risk management. Seminar highlights include: ?Why energy trading has changed forever ?Who are these guys: What actually is a hedge fund? ?Why the energy markets are now more financially focused ?What's the future role of utilities in this new trading dynamic ?What are the impacts on market structure ?What are the technology choices available ?What's going to happen next in energy tradingFor further information on registering for the seminar please click to www.pgsenergytraining,.com.

Please contact Peter Fusaro or Gary Vasey for more information and free press passes for bona fide members of the press to this event.e-mail protected from spam bots e-mail protected from spam bots.???About Global Change Associates, Inc.Global Change Associates, based in New York (www.global-change.com), is a leading consultancy in energy and environmental commodity risk management. GCA is at the forefront of revealing changes in energy trading and risk management, and has been the market leader in energy trading, energy e-commerce, and Enron competitive analysis studies. Company chairman, Peter Fusaro is the author of New York Times best seller What Went Wrong at Enron and has authored six books on energy and environmental trading and will release Energy Hedging in Asia this fall through MacMillan. The company holds the annual Green Trading Summit in New York City.About UtiliPoint International, Inc.???Utilipoint International (www.utilipoint.com)???With origins dating to 1933, UtiliPoint International, Inc. is a leader in providing research-based consulting to the utility industry.

UtiliPoint analysts have provided strategic business plans and studies on information technology, and its impact on utility operations. Direct experiences include work in trading/risk management, outsourcing, CIS, billing, CRM, metering, AMR, demand response, work/outage management, supply chain, ERP, call centers, rates/pricing products, and IT architectural design. The firm is also the publisher of IssueAlert?, an analysis of the utility and energy industry's hot topics sent to over 34,000 utility and energy executives daily.??????.