market folly

Alpha is out with the rankings of the top 100 largest hedge funds in the world for 2008. I'll list them by their 2008 ranking and will also show where they were this time last year so you can see who has moved where on the list. Here is the top 5 by their 2008 ranking:

1. JP Morgan Asset Management (ranked #1 in 2007 as well)
2. Bridgewater Associates (ranked #3 in 2007)
3. Farallon Capital Management (ranked #5 in 2007)
4. Renaissance Technologies (ranked #6 in 2007)
5. Och-Ziff Capital Management (ranked #7 in 2007)

And, I wanted to highlight some of the funds that I track in terms of where they fall on the list of largest hedge funds in the world for 2008:

#6 D.E. Shaw (#4 in 2007)
#13. Atticus Capital (#16 in 2007)
#17. Lone Pine Capital (#47 in 2007)
#18. George Soros (#25 in 2007)
#23 Tudor Investment Corp (#12 in 2007)
#24 SAC Capital (#28 in 2007)
#27 Moore Capital (#20 in 2007)
#38 Caxton Associates (#16 in 2007)
#50 Maverick Capital (#40 in 2007)
#53 Eton Park Capital (#70 in 2007)
#70 Viking Global Investors (#74 in 2007)
#79 Jana Partners (#80 in 2007)
#83 Icahn Partners ( not in the top 100 back in 2007)
#93 Blue Ridge Partners (not in the top 100 back in 2007)

Its very evident that three of the ex-Tiger management funds had great years. Lone Pine leapfrogged a ton of funds from 47th in 2007 all the way up to 17th in 2008. Blue Ridge was not even in the top 100 but now sit at 93rd. Viking moved up slightly from 74th last year to 70th now. But, in the end, you have to keep in mind that all the firms on this list could have either gained capital from new investors or they could have grown their capital through successful investments, or a combination of both.

None the less, interesting information. You can read through the whole list here.