As with October, it was the trend-following, tail risk, volatility and commodity managers that saw positive returns, while global equities were weaker in line with global equity indices.

Anthony Limbrick, chairman of the New Zealand Absolute Return Association, who is also chief investment officer of Pure Capital, one of the contributing managers, says: 'We are close to completing our first calendar year of record-keeping for the index and it is heartening to see such a strong ensemble performance from the constituent managers.'

The Ernst and Young New Zealand Absolute Return Index is based on a concept of simple averages.

Each of the eight constituent managers presents an NZARA average, an average of the performance of all their funds or programs that are available for new money. In some cases a manager is presenting an average of several products.

This collection of averages is then compiled again as a simple average to create the index.

Ernst and Young compiles the index but is not a verification agent and does not guarantee the veracity of the performance numbers presented by the individual managers.