Lucy Kellaway's 9 Rules For Hedge Fund Managers' Letters to Investors Telling Them Their Money is Lost

They appeared in her November 3, 2008 column in the Financial Times.

Here's the Reader's Digest version for those with short attention spans.

1) Keep it long

2) Apologize early

3) Blame the weather

4) Blame the market

5) Blame anyone else you can think of

6) Say things that reflect well on you

7) Work on the emotions

8) Preface many sentences with "Candidly"

9) Sound upbeat about the future