Aggressive Growth
Invests in equities expected to experience acceleration in growth of earnings per share.  Generally high P/E ratios, low or no dividends; often smaller and micro capitalisation shares which are expected to experience rapid growth.  Hedges by shorting equities where earnings disappointment is expected or by shorting stock indexes.

Convertible Arbitrage
Manager focuses on obtaining returns with low or no correlation to the market. Manager extracts the pricing differences between securities of the same issuer where he believes one security is undervalued (eg convertible note) relative to another security (eg ordinary share) of the same issuer which is simultaneously sold short

Country Specific
Manager focuses on a single country, or a few countries from a specific region. Russia and Japan focused funds have been popular in the last few years.

CTA
CTA is short for Commodity Trading Advisor. CTA's generally trade commodity futures, options and foreign exchange and most are highly leveraged.

Distressed
Buying the equity or debt of companies that are in or facing bankruptcy particularly where the market has mis-priced the true value of the deeply discounted securities, where there is panic selling or where institutional investors cannot own below investment grade securities Investor hopes to buy company securities at a low price and that company will come out of bankruptcy and securities will appreciate.  Alternatively the manager may short sell securities of companies expected to go into bankruptcy.  "Orphan equities" just emerged from bankruptcy situations are sometimes included.

Emerging Markets
Manager focuses on investing in the securities of companies from "emerging" or developing countries.

Energy Sector
Manager is primarily invested in securities revolving around the energy sector.

Event Driven
Manager takes significant positions in limited number of companies with "special situations": companies' situations are unusual in a possible variety of ways and offer profit opportunities; e.g., depressed share price; securities offering, company is being merged with or acquired by another company; corporate reorganisation; bad news emerging which will temporarily depress share price (so manager shorts stock), etc.

Finance Sector
Manager is primarily invested in securities revolving around the finance sector, including banks, stockbrokers, etc.

Fixed Income Arbitrage
Manager generally exploits pricing differences between similar fixed income securities, eg bonds with the same maturity date but with different yields. Often highly leveraged.

Fixed Income
Manager invests in fixed income instruments, either long, short or both. Often highly leveraged.

Fund of Funds
Mixes and matches hedge funds and other pooled investment vehicles. This blending of different strategies and asset classes aims to provide a more stable long-term investment return than any of the individual funds. Returns, risk, and volatility can be controlled by the mix of underlying strategies and funds. Capital preservation is generally an important consideration.

Healthcare Sector
Manager is primarily invested in securities revolving around the healthcare sector, including biotechnology.

Long Only
Similar to a mutual fund, except the manager can trade a variety of financial instruments and use leverage.

Long/Short Hedged
Also know as "Jones Model." Manager buys securities he believes will go up in price and sells short securities he believes will decline in price. Managers will be either "net long" or "net short" and may change their "net" position frequently. For example, a manager may be 60% long and 100% short, giving him a market exposure of 40% net short. The basic belief behind this strategy is that it will enhance the manager's stock picking ability and protect investors in all market conditions.

Macro
The investment philosophy is based on shifts in global economies. Derivatives are often used to speculate on currency and interest rate moves.

Market Neutral
Any strategy that attempts to fully eliminate market risk and be profitable in any market condition.

Market Timer
Manager attempts to "time the market" by allocating assets among investments primarily switching between mutual funds and money markets.

Opportunistic
A general term describing any fund that is "opportunistic" in nature. These types of funds are usually aggressive and they seek to make money in the most efficient way at the given time.

Options Arbitrage
Manager will seek to exploit pricing differences between similar options through inefficiencies in the market.

Options Strategies
A loosely defined category that describes any manager that focuses on options.

Regulation D
Manager will make private investments in public companies in need of financing. Generally the manager will receive a discounted convertible note in return for a capital allocation, essentially locking in a profit.

Risk Arbitrage
Also known as "Merger Arbitrage". The manager invests in event-driven situations, such as leveraged buy-outs, mergers, and hostile takeovers. Managers purchases shares in the firm being taken over and, in some situations, sells short the shares of the acquiring company.

Short Bias
Any manager who consistently has a "net short" exposure to the market. This category also includes short only funds.

Short-term Trading
Manager focuses on short duration, opportunistic trades, and sometimes this strategy will include "Day Trading." 

Small/Micro Capitalisation
Usually long biased, the manager will exclusively focus on small and micro capitalisation shares.

Special Situations
"Special Situations" may broadly consist of some type of event driven strategy. Managers will opportunistically trade in any type of security that they deem to be a "special situation."

Statistical Arbitrage
Believing that equities behave in a way that is mathematically describable, managers perform a low risk, market neutral analytical equity strategy. This approach captures momentary pricing aberrations in the shares being monitored. The strategy's profit objective is to exploit mis-pricing in as risk-free manner as possible.

Technology Sector
Manager is primarily invested in securities revolving around the technology sector such as Internet, semiconductors, hardware, software, etc.

Value
Manager invests in shares which are perceived to be selling at a discount to their intrinsic or potential worth; i.e., "undervalued" or cheap shares which are out of favour with the market and are not well researched by investment analysts. Manager believes that the share price of these shares will increase as "value" of company is recognised by the market.  May hedge the portfolio by short selling overvalued shares or index futures.

Venture Capital/Private Equity
Any manager who focuses on, or has a component of, venture capital or private equity in the portfolio. As hedge funds are not restricted to trade only "listed" securities, some manager will make private investments.   Profits arise when these investments are floated on the stock exchange or sold to another company.