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In October 2008, the manager of client services at Duckworth Asset Management Inc (Duckworth), an investment firm headquartered in St John''s, Newfoundland, was preparing for a briefing with Duckworth''s vice-president of investments. The vice-president had been fielding several phone calls in the past few weeks, all from clients concerned about the significant drop in global financial markets. Since its June 2008 peak, Canada''s S&P / TSX had dropped 33 per cent - one of the fastest market corrections in history. One client in particular - the Canadian Swimming Scholarship Foundation (CSSF) - had asked for a meeting with the vice-president regarding alternative investments. The CSSF had heard from another foundation that market neutral strategies could help them manage the volatility they were experiencing with their current holdings. The vice-president had asked the client-services manager to prepare a recommendation on how to best explain events in the current market, the concept of investment risk and if a market neutral strategy could help reduce total portfolio vulnerability.