What is a Hedge Fund?
I'm currently on vacation at my new in-laws, so my posting will be little off this week. New posts will be up before the Tuesday/Thursday promise, but (as in this case) sometimes that might mean a day early.
I fondly remember the Super Mario Bro's Show while growing up. It was a hilarious show that began and ended with two guys dressed up as the world's most recognized italian plumbers. In between they would show an animated sketch that usually starred Mario, Luigi and the other denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom. However once in a while they would replace the Mario cartoon with a cartoon based on The Legend of Zelda, a complete change of direction and arguably more exciting.
In honor of that most notable show, I too like to stick mainly with my bread and butter, namely real estate, landlording and dishonest "gurus". But every once in a while I like to go off in a somewhat random direction and talk about other things. Today is one of those days and I want to discuss a little bit about hedge funds.
Most people even remotely interested in money have heard of hedge funds. They are the investment vehicle of the rich, glamorous and exciting, they routinely bring about returns higher than 25%... right? Let's start with a little history lesson.
Every investor knows about risk, but in the late 1940's an investor named Alfred Winslow Jones came up with the idea of hedging certain risks in the stock market. When you "hedge" an investment, you essentially bet on both sides of an issue so that you don't lose or win regardless of the outcome.
Let's say that I buy two investments. The first investment is tied to interest rates so if they climb, the investment loses value. The second investment is tied to interest rates so that if the rates climb, it gains value. Now, no matter what the interest rates do, I don't lose any money. I've hedged myself against the interest rates.
But why would you do that? After all, if interest rates move you don't gain any money either! That's 100% true, but the interest rate isn't the only variable that affects my return, it's only one. The goal of hedging your investments is simply to limit the number of variables that can impact your portfolio.
Let's say that you believe that Volkwagon is going to post huge gains this year. You want to buy their stocks but you are worried. What is the euro falls against the dollar? If Volkswagon gains 20%, but the euro falls 20%, you've just seen all your gains wiped out by a currency change. So you buy the Volkwagon stock, but then also short the euro (shorting is an investment where you essentially gain if the investment falls in value). If the euro stays strong and Volkswagon succeeds, you will make money from the stock and the euro breaks even. If the euro falls and Volkswagon succeeds, you'll make money from the short on euro, and the stock breaks even. Essentially the euro no longer matters in the equation, you'll only lose if the Volkswagon stock falls.
That is hedging. Unfortunately for most mutal funds, hedging often involves shorting stocks and leveraging positions (taking loans to buy investments), something that mutual fund managers are not allowed to do by SEC regulations (or at least not do freely). So around the 1980's some enterprising finance whizzes came up with a way around it. They would invest outside of SEC regulations, but still within the law. And hedge funds were born.
Hedge funds can only allow accredited investors to buy in. An accredited investor is someone who has a net worth of at least $1 million, or has earned at least $200,000 a year for the past two years. Why does the government do this? Why does it prevent poorer people from buying into the investments of the rich?
Simply put, accredited investors are people who are allowed to invest money in schemes that are not regulated by the SEC. Because these schemes are unregulated, they can often be extremely risky, and contain all manners of undisclosed issues. The government coined the term accredited investor to represent someone who had enough money to be aware of the risks inherent in unregulated investing. In other words, the government is limiting the risks that poor people can make with their money (yet government still encourage lotteries... more than slightly hypocritical).
Early on, hedge funds enjoyed tremendous gains (as is typical whenever a new successful niche is discovered). For many years hedge funds were able to generate huge returns by eliminating un-wanted risks and focusing their growth on variables that they could predict. However, as with all new successful markets, competition sprung up all around them. Profits became harder to find, but the investors still expected mammoth returns.
Due to the lack of regulation by the SEC, the hedge funds began to leverage themselves more and more, and instead of eliminating risks they began to gamble. They would leverage huge amounts of money on "almost sure things". Of course, as I've written before, when playing with leverage, you only have to lose once to destroy yourself.
This happened to a company named Long Term Capital Management in 1998. For the first four years of it's existence, LTCM returned nearly 40% a year. At first everything was great because they had found a very profitabler niche in the market. But as their niche lost it's profitability, the firm found itself under pressure to continue with it's extrodinary gains. They took risker strategies and undertook an enormous amount of leverage. When the market turned sour in 1998, they lost $4.6 billion in less than 4 months and had to be bailed out by the US government (actually the bail-out was private, but organized by the government).
So there you have it. A hedge fund is simply a vehicle (like a mutual fund) that is allowed to undergo risky strategies because it's somewhat on the outside of SEC regulations. Some hedge funds put togeher extrodinary returns, but just as many fail miserably. While hedge funds retain their name from the time when they actually hedged against risk, today they are simply specialized investment vehicles open only accredited investors.
The strategies that are available to hedge funds allow them to earn slightly higher returns than mutual funds, but that gain is apparently over-stated and comes with extremely high risk. Barclay's Bank (a major British Bank) did some research into the "average" results that were compiled by hedge funds indicies and found:
Barclays outlined a series of methodological failings by index compilers,
including survivorship bias — the tendency to ignore funds as soon as they close
or fail. This alone added between 2 and 4 per cent a year to index performance
figures, according to academic studies, Barclays said.
And there's good news for average joe's who wish they had the the complexity of hedge funds available. Due to leveraging and shorting becoming more and more common-place in the market today, the SEC is considering allowing regular mutual funds the freedom to place limited leveraged positions and shorts. So soon these techniques will be available, in fund form, to everyone.
9 comments:
I like the news, even know I have just read the news now, I became interested to know what is a Hedge fund and what it really means.
Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!
Good day, sun shines!
There have were times of troubles when I felt unhappy missing knowledge about opportunities of getting high yields on investments. I was a dump and downright pessimistic person.
I have never thought that there weren't any need in large initial investment.
Nowadays, I feel good, I begin take up real money.
It gets down to select a proper partner who utilizes your money in a right way - that is incorporate it in real deals, and shares the income with me.
You may ask, if there are such firms? I have to answer the truth, YES, there are. Please be informed of one of them:
http://theinvestblog.com [url=http://theinvestblog.com]Online Investment Blog[/url]
Do You interesting how to [b]Buy Viagra per pill[/b]? You can find below...
[size=10]>>>[url=http://listita.info/go.php?sid=1][b]Buy Viagra per pill[/b][/url]<<<[/size]
[URL=http://imgwebsearch.com/30269/link/viagra%2C%20tramadol%2C%20zithromax%2C%20carisoprodol%2C%20buy%20cialis/1_valentine3.html][IMG]http://imgwebsearch.com/30269/img0/viagra%2C%20tramadol%2C%20zithromax%2C%20carisoprodol%2C%20buy%20cialis/1_valentine3.png[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=http://imgwebsearch.com/30269/link/buy%20viagra/3_headsex1.html][IMG]http://imgwebsearch.com/30269/img0/buy%20viagra/3_headsex1.png[/IMG][/URL]
[b]Bonus Policy[/b]
Order 3 or more products and get free Regular Airmail shipping!
Free Regular Airmail shipping for orders starting with $200.00!
Free insurance (guaranteed reshipment if delivery failed) for orders starting with $300.00!
[b]Description[/b]
Generic Viagra (sildenafil citrate; brand names include: Aphrodil / Edegra / Erasmo / Penegra / Revatio / Supra / Zwagra) is an effective treatment for erectile dysfunction regardless of the cause or duration of the problem or the age of the patient.
Sildenafil Citrate is the active ingredient used to treat erectile dysfunction (impotence) in men. It can help men who have erectile dysfunction get and sustain an erection when they are sexually excited.
Generic Viagra is manufactured in accordance with World Health Organization standards and guidelines (WHO-GMP). Also you can find on our sites.
Generic [url=http://viagra.deutafilm.ru]buy generic viagra online in canada[/url] is made with thorough reverse engineering for the sildenafil citrate molecule - a totally different process of making sildenafil and its reaction. That is why it takes effect in 15 minutes compared to other drugs which take 30-40 minutes to take effect.
[b]viagra oysters
impotent because nervous viagra
viagra kiting
Viagra Average Age
Singapore Viagra
Viagra Glaucoma
publicidad viagra marketing
[/b]
Even in the most sexually liberated and self-satisfied of nations, many people still yearn to burn more, to feel ready for bedding no matter what the clock says and to desire their partner of 23 years as much as they did when their love was brand new.
The market is saturated with books on how to revive a flagging libido or spice up monotonous sex, and sex therapists say “lack of desire” is one of the most common complaints they hear from patients, particularly women.
Please, give me link to download XRumer 7.0!!!
Thanks!
Always yours,
miss MW
Where is admin?!
Thank for all
[url=][/url]
unlock iphone 4
iphone 4 unlock
how to unlock iphone 4
http://www.webvertization.com/?guid=20051209093056 http://www.roughstock.com/audio/george-strait-here-for-a-good-time
I am unable to open web sites because this personal security web site keeps popping up. it is telling me there is no virus protection found on my computer. I have norton 360 as well as macafee. it won't even uninstall from the add and remove program. I never loaded it in the first place. ran norton scan and it says everything is fine. don't know what to do now. am not computer literate. need simple advice.
unlock iphone 4 unlock iphone 4
iphone 4 unlock [url=http://unlockiphone44.com]unlock iphone 4[/url] unlock iphone 4 unlock iphone 4
2020.05.31酒店小姐的基本介紹跟工作內容背滿學貸信貸,優渥人生對妳而言好遙遠?快來哈囉舒壓,我在酒店上班的日子給自己一個機會,不敢來酒店上班-酒店打工的原因成就日收破萬高薪人生! 工作環境單純,安全更無憂。想脫貧?這次好機會別錯過。酒店上班-酒店兼職-兼差如何達成人生的第一桶金免繳保證金/免證件/不綁約。薪資超透明 月入10萬不是夢。服務: 安全面試, 最佳顧問, 單純保證, 安全呵護。一、酒店兼差不是一個複雜的工作環境?酒店小姐的收入有多少?有急用可以借支嗎? 職場須知 【酒店PT 】以一個〝單純〞陪酒的酒店小姐,一天的收入約3000~7000(不含小費)除非有〝額外〞的服務,一天可以領。而且只要做酒店工作,這些都是無法避免的「有人覺得做禮服店就賺很多,又不會出場,我都覺得是幻想。你不是模特兒等級的,哪間禮服店收?傳播工作與酒店工作有什麼不同傳播小姐與酒店小姐的工作內容其實大同小異,但在工作內容以外卻有許多的大不同,我來為各位做出2者不同的差異性,給各位做個酒店工作內容: 桌面服務,一般人通常會想偏,其實桌面服務是很簡單,也很單純的一件事。桌面服務有以下幾個要點: 看了很多篇酒店文,好像很少有男生寫經驗? 我是酒店少爺,在滿18歲那天開始上班雖然不是第一次進去酒店,不過以工作人員的身份倒是頭一次,有一些沒有接觸過酒店的姐妹來找我應徵酒店小姐的時候,我們談的都很融洽,實際上她們也很需要來酒店上班賺錢,可是後來卻沒有來上班,不是沒有休假?那個是有簽約的對吧? 不可違約?薪水大約多少?怎麼領的? 應該不是月薪吧? 女孩子去那裡上班會不會,這表示我還不夠好,而且不誨言的,我也希望收入可以增加!) 雖說酒店上班一個星期的收入等於一個上班族一個月二至三萬的薪水,新冠肺炎疫情延燒,讓酒店文化也成為民眾茶餘飯後的話題,一名女大生在《Dcard》分享自己酒店上班的經驗,也讓她見識到這個工作辛苦的一面,分享自己在酒店上班當酒店小姐的甘苦經驗。很多不懂酒店這環境的人,想來酒店上班、酒店打工、酒店兼差、酒店兼職,卻往往會被這八個問題所困擾著!在此酒店經紀琳琳姐為各位整理出以下幾點問與答,究竟要如何在第一天就上手酒店的工作呢?許多人都認為酒店是個複雜的環境,不過與現實社會的壓力相較,還是會有人選擇在酒店上班、酒店打工。
Post a Comment