Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) is launching a fund of market-neutral funds called Goldman Sachs Market Independent Partners. David Burnside, the executive director of GSAM, explained that the market-independent sector offers equity-like returns with fixed-income-like volatility.

A simulated index of hedge fund research market independent strategies achieved an annualised return of 11.5% over the past 10 years with annualised volatility of 2.5%, over the same time frame. Part of the allure of market-neutral strategies is that they exhibit low correlation to each other and to traditional asset classes, Burnside says.