Betting on survival

How do you pick winners among the disorderly rabble of hedge funds, especially now that some of the greatest market wizards of all time have lost their nerve? Soros and Robertson have left the game. Macroeconomic models no longer convince. Yet armies of the true, non-directional, or market-protected, hedge fund managers are attracting new investors. And some traditional managers are copying their game. Isn't the industry becoming too respectable? David Shirreff reports