RUN ON THE FUND

A situation in which a hedge fund faces an increasing amount of redemptions, causing the fund managers to sell positions to meet the withdrawals. A run on the fund can happen for several reasons but is usually the result of poor performance from the hedge fund. If the run on the fund is large enough it could force the fund to close its operations after most investors have taken their money out of the fund.

A run on a fund starts out slowly but quickly increases as investors rush for the exit, as increasing redemptions are generally considered to be negative and no one wants to be around near the end of the run. The reason for this is that redemptions force a fund to sell out of positions to produce liquidity to meet the redemptions. This selling will often weigh on the performance of the fund as the fund is forced to sell at inopportune times leading to losses.