Raise the drawbridge!

As if to illustrate how bad things are for hedge funds in spite of all the policy fiddling by lawmakers and central bankers, Fortress announced today that it is suspending redemptions on its flagship Drawbridge Macro Fund. Now those redeeming investors besieging Fortress have to wait out by the legal moat generously provided by the partnership agreements.

The figures are scary. Taking the fund's reported size of $8Bln as read (no mean assumption in this day and age), the amount that investors are trying to take out amounts to c. 40% of the entire portfolio ($3.5 Bln).

The optimists will say that this is a temporary move to preserve capital and prevent forced sales. Yet it doesn't take much to puncture that bubble - assuming credit markets remained in limbo for a few more quarters, those valuations aren't going to move up any time soon.

If you're having trouble keeping up with the hedge fund quagmire, check out this site which is keeping a tally on the mayhem.