Rather than being benchmarked against the more common metrics such as the S&P 500 or the Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index, the hurdles for absolute return ETFs are typically the Consumer Price Index (( CPI )), the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) or Treasury Bills. Aggregate Bond Index ETF ( AGG ), is pretty low (17 percent). As you can readily see, however, there were times when hedge funds lagged stocks and other times when the alternative investments shone brighter.