We’ve seen the housing market crash, the financial market go down in flames… is the worst over?  Nope.  Not by a mile.  In addition to the credit card market’s impending bust, you now have the opaque hedge fund industry about to fall off a cliff.

“Managers have a pretty good feeling for what is coming, and there are significant redemption requests out there,” said Stewart Massey, founding partner of Massey, Quick & Co, an investment consultant that puts money into hedge funds.

Saturday is the last day for thousands of investors to notify hundreds of hedge funds if they want their money back by year’s end.

Hedge funds that require three months notice from investors who wanted to exit by year’s end had a similar deadline on September 30 - also known in the industry as “D-Day.”

More such deadlines loom for funds that allow investors to give less notice before taking their money out, fund managers said.

In the last two days, several prominent fund managers made public predictions that illustrate the depth of gloom now sweeping the $US1.7 trillion ($2.6 trillion) hedge fund industry.

Read more.  As hard as it might be to believe, it’s just the calm before the storm.

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