Book excerpt: In volatile markets, controlling downside risk is critical in order to achieve strong returns and market-neutral investing has emerged as a leading method for achieving this goal. In this book, U.S. investment expert Joseph G. Nicholas explores important new market-neutral approaches to return enhancement and risk reduction. Market-neutral strategies help in eliminating certain market risks through offsetting long and short positions and can be used with all the different asset classes. The complexities created by the combination of longs, shorts, and leverage, however, make market-neutral strategies very different from conventional investments. Getting to know how these strategies work involves breaking them down into their basic components and then examining how those parts interact as a system with specific risk and reward characteristics