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range. Tepper, Kovner, Henry, and Griffin have compound annual returns between 25 percent and 30 percent. Rajaratnam's compound average annual return is about 34 percent.

Consistency

The consistency and discipline of most of the track records is very interesting. (See Table 4.1.) Ainslie, Rajaratnam, and Och have not had a down calendar year since they started trading in 1993/1994. Singer, Stark, Griffin, and Tepper have each had only one down year since their inception of trading in 1977, 1987, 1990, and 1993 respectively.

Double-digit annual returns to the upside are commonplace among these managers.

Noncorrelation

Hedge funds are suppose to perform well even when the stock market is flat, choppy, or negative. To see whether this occurred, I looked at three such years for the S&P—1990, 1994, and 2000.

Looking at the down stock market year of 1990—when the S&P was down 3.1 percent—most of the superstar hedge fund managers came out smelling like a rose. All but one of the managers who were trading generated positive results. John Henry climbed 83.6 percent, Kovner soared 39.4 percent, Kingdon gained 20 percent, Singer was up 13.4 percent and Sussman climbed 11.3 percent, while Stark gained 6.4 percent. Cumberland was down 18.8 percent. The other managers did not yet have their own track record.

In 1994, the S&P was up only 1.3 percent. The superstar managers had mixed results, while hedge fund managers in the overall general hedge fund community did not do well. Five of the 13 managers were positive. and one was flat. Rajaratnam soared 29.3 percent, while Och climbed 28.5 percent. Tepper was up 19.0 percent, and Stark gained 10.4 percent. Ainslie was up 6.8 percent. Singer was flat.

Seven were down: Cooperman was down 24.6 percent, while Cumberland gave back 6.4 percent. Sussman dropped 5.4 percent, and Henry gave up 5.3 percent. Griffin fell 4.3 percent, while Kingdon and Kovner both lost 2.2 percent. Reasons for a poor 1994 were the credit squeeze and unusual cross-correlation of different asset