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.

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."