The best way of protecting against downside volatility

As a long/short manager, we hedge sharemarket risk for our investors by short-selling the shares of weak businesses when they are overvalued. By holding long and short portfolios of roughly equal size and composition, our funds have little or no net exposure to the share market. Our directional fund provides us with further flexibility to adjust investors’ exposure to the share market, and in fact, is currently net short the market. Most importantly, a hedged position ensures that our portfolios are insulated from the impact of exogenous forces. This provides an ability to preserve investors’ capital when markets fall and gives rise to returns that are uncorrelated with the share market. There is no better way of protecting our investors from downside volatility. (Justin Braitling, Watermark Funds)