Chicago, Illinois-based hedge fund manager AM Capital Advisors outperformed its peers and gained 62% in volatile 2012 versus the DOW index +7.22%, NASDAQ +13.62%, and S&P 500 index +13.29%, AM Advisors president Mr. Aaron Miller said in an emailed statement.

AM Capital Management, which manages AM Capital Advisors, is a long/short US stock equity funded July 1, 2009. Since inception, AM Capital's performance is up 82.74% return over a 42 month period versus DOW index 55.12%, NASDAQ 63.55%, and the S&P 500 index at 54.88% over the same period.

For the month of December, the fund was up +2.57% versus the DOW index + 0.58%, NASDAQ - 0.03%, and the S&P 500 index at + 0.69%.

Commenting on his spectacular performance in a year with the average hedge fund gained only 6% last year and 80% underperformed the S&P 500, Mr. Miller said his core stock positions which are concentrated among a few stocks did not outperform the market by a significant margin, but his over all derivatives did."

"The core of my strategy is heavily reliant on my firm's research and we try to identify stocks where there's a catalyst on why it should have an up or down move," added Mr.Miller.

Mr. Miller is bullish in 2013 for AM Capital. While he said he never guarantees a specific percentage gains, he is confident that AM Capital would outperform all indexes this year despite looking at major challenges.

"From the overall current prices in the market I don't think 62% performance is realistic in 2013, but that doesn't mean 25-30% isn't obtainable," he said.

2013 Investment Picks and Forecast

He notes that as long as the Fed continues its current monetary policy, equities are the preferred place of investment compared to bonds and cash.

"If unemployment reaches the fed's target rate of 6.5%, I would expect to see interest rates rise rapidly & that will have a negative effect on equities if one wants higher prices," he added.

Without any major external events, some stability is foreseen in 2013 in the U.S. economy albeit the political gridlocks on the budget.

He said that with the current pace of investments, investment managers are forced to have a concentrated portfolio. Mr. Miller is looking at opportunities in the automobile and gold mining sectors that have strong potentials this year.

Mr. Miller, however, advised cautious optimism that should not prevent performance. He said he is still wary about developments in Europe and the Middle East.

"However this is not the business to be in if you can't tolerate issues because there's always going to are potential head winds going on," he noted.

AM Capital strategies are focused to qualified institutional and individual investors. Its investment team applies a disciplined investment process and risk management tools to construct diversified hedge fund portfolios in order to achieve the firm's clients' risk-adjusted return objective.