Hedge fund index-engineering methodologies: a comparison and demonstration

We examine hedge fund (HF) index construction methodologies, by describing and analyzing case studies from two well-known database vendors and evaluating them using numerical examples on the same dataset. Despite the fact that they follow a similar due diligence process, there are great differences in the index engineering practices arising from different quantitative techniques, even for indices in the same HF category. However, those quantitative techniques provide similar results. The differences are rather due to the use of different HF universes and different inclusion criteria. This paper is the first to use actual numerical case studies to illustrate and compare how HF index engineering works. Having read it the reader will have a good understanding of how HF indices are formed.