Quotes & Sayings About Hedge Funds

The competitive landscape of hedge funds is rapidly changing, as hundreds of funds are opened and closed every year. For example, Pensions & Investments reported that 784 new funds were started in 2009, while 1,023 existing funds were closed. Amazingly, the median life of a hedge fund is only 31 months. Fewer than 15 percent of hedge funds last longer than six years, and 60 percent of them disappear in less than three years.[3] — Gordon Murray

Hedge funds, private equity and venture capital funds have played an important role in providing liquidity to our financial system and improving the efficiency of capital markets. But as their role has grown, so have the risks they pose. — Jack Reed

Given the typical fee structures of hedge funds, they need to do something different to make money in a consistent way. — Paul Singer

I'd encourage [you] to think big and be delusional when setting goals. Yes, delusional. The biggest mistake that I made with my first business was I didn't think big enough. I limited my success by just focusing on a small geographic area and focusing on hitting small sales targets. Now when I set my goals, I make sure that they are ridiculous. I prefer to work extremely hard and fall short on my ridiculous goals than to achieve mediocre goals. — Warren Cassell Jr.

Hedge funds are not especially liquid. Many are 'gated' - meaning there are only small windows when you can withdraw your money. They typically have a high minimum investment and often require investors keep their money in the fund for at least one year. — Barry Ritholtz

Substantially fewer films will be produced over the next year or two. And a significant portion of the production costs of the reduced slate will be borne by hedge funds and other investment groups. — Peter Bart

If you think Wall Street has a short memory, you're dead wrong. No, the folks who work on Wall Street, regulate Wall Street - and, above all, invest in its wares, notably its hedge funds - don't have a bad memory. They don't have any memory at all. — Gary Weiss

From coast to coast, the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission have ensnared people not only at hedge funds, but at technology and pharmaceutical companies, consulting and law firms, government agencies, and even a major stock exchange. — Preet Bharara

If competition for Kaggle's top talent becomes fierce enough among banks, insurance companies, hedge funds - we hope the world's best data scientists will earn more than $50 million per year, just like the world's best hedge fund managers. — Anthony Goldbloom

The risks facing hedge funds are non-linear and more complex than those facing traditional asset classessuch risks are currently not widely appreciated or well-understood — Andrew Lo

In 2008, people who invested in hedge funds needed capital badly, but many of the funds would not return their money. However, I gave money back to any investor who requested it. It was the bottom of the market and a pretty tough time. — Carl Icahn

I don't think that hedge funds are bad per se. I think they're just one more financial tool. And in that sense, they're useful. — Barack Obama

The free market is at its best when everybody works in a fish bowl and tells you their point of view ... The hedge funds and portfolio managers have a right to do this ... We've muted the analysts and their presence in the system. — Mario Gabelli

10/20/30 Rule in my book can level the playing field for a retail forex trader to trade alongside big banks and hedge funds. — Ramesh Selvarajoo

For example, you could build many companies based on applying the cutting edge predictive analytics and data mining techniques commonly used at consumer web startups, quantitative hedge funds, etc., to less advanced industries. — Chris LoPresti

I've heard that one-half of the students at elite schools want to go into private equity or hedge funds. They want to keep up with their age cohorts at Goldman. This can't possibly end well in terms of meeting these expectations. — Charlie Munger

The corporation and the hedge funds have a hold on Hollywood, and they all want to make money on anything that signifies cinema. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

You can't have bank holding companies acting as hedge funds. You can't have them taking a million-dollar pension plan for Joe Schmo the bus driver and treat it with the same risk appetite that you treat George Soros' pocket money. It's fundamentally ridiculous. — Shia Labeouf

There was a time traditionally - say, GM in the 1950s - it was trying to develop a consumer base that would be loyal and lasting and they were thinking in terms of an institution that would remain and grow and thrive in the society. By now, a lot of the investment firms - bankers, hedge funds - are perfectly happy to destroy what they're in and come out with huge, tremendous benefits. That's a new stage of capitalism. — Noam Chomsky

Overwinding happens when hedge funds destroy companies by attempting to leverage derivatives against otherwise productive long-term assets. — Douglas Rushkoff

We conclude that hedge funds are far riskier and provide much lower returns than is commonly supposed. — Burton Malkiel

In general, the hedge funds were clobbered by the 1969 bear market, ending up in many cases with records that were worse than those put together by aggressive mutual funds denied the luxury of short sales. — Carol Loomis

You've seen my statements; I do very well. I don't mind paying some taxes. The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing, and it's ridiculous, OK? — Donald Trump

A good salesman knows you better than you know yourself. If you are Chinese, they will sell you yield. If you're European, they will stroke your sense of superiority. If you're an ambitious manager of an American pension fund, sitting on piles of money but bound by rules and regulations, they will find a kosher way for you to become the big swinging dick you always knew you were. And if you are an American hedge fund - a serious fund, not two guys and a Bloomberg - a smart salesman cuts the bullshit and both of you reach an understanding. — Katya G. Cohen

The 1969 experience has been a rude awakening for many hedge-fund investors and has left some of them with strong reservations about the whole concept. For the first time in their relatively short history, the funds are not growing: in fact, some have suffered large withdrawals of capital, and a few have actually folded. — Carol Loomis

I often point out to hedge fund proponents that their industry used to claim it was targeting absolute returns, with the promise that they'd make money over any reasonably long holding period and were uncorrelated with other major asset classes such as stocks or bonds. The 2008 crash showed how unattainable this was, and hedge fund proponents quietly adopted different descriptions of their objectives. These included generating attractive Relative Returns, and more recently when even this more modest objective proved to be beyond their collective ability the term Uncorrelated Returns gained favor. Since hedge funds have in recent years been worse than just about anything else it's been a good choice. — Simon A. Lack

Despite all the media coverage, glitz and glam of hedge funds, they have not done well for their investors. They have high - some say excessively high - fees; their short- and long-term performance has been poor. — Barry Ritholtz

The Federal Reserve was not founded to bail out Bear Stearns or a few hedge funds. It was founded to keep a stable currency and maintain its value. — Jim Rogers

...there should be no place in a portfolio for hedge funds. There are lots of reasons, but the main one is simple: Investing in hedge funds is a great way to increase the odds of underperformance. — Peter Mallouk

If we're talking about buying exchanges abroad, we have to have global securities standards, as we have global banking regulations. I'm talking about margins. Now, the United States has certain margin requirements that are not the same in London. Investors and hedge funds that want to borrow more money against securities ? if they can't in the U.S., they go abroad. That could add additional risks to the global economy. — Muriel Siebert

Hedge funds are a very efficient way of managing money. But there are clearly some risks. Hedge funds use credit and credit is a source of instability. Transactions involving credit should be regulated. — George Soros

The bigger worry for him is if Danish banks and pension funds lose faith in the peg and start to sell euro assets to hedge their currency risks. "It is more important for Danish authorities to convince people in Denmark that they keep the peg than foreign investors," he says. — Anonymous

I never use hedge funds because I am well aware of what drives future performance, and hedge funds start out with a great disadvantage in every major category: taxes, fees, risk management, transparency and liquidity. — Peter Mallouk

Wall Street, with its army of brokers, analysts, and advisers funneling trillions of dollars into mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds, is an elaborate fraud. — Michael Lewis

Hedge funds are investment pools that are relatively unconstrained in what they do. They are relatively unregulated (for now), charge very high fees, will not necessarily give you your money back when you want it, and will generally not tell you what they do. They are supposed to make money all the time, and when they fail at this, their investors redeem and go to someone else who has recently been making money. Every three or four years they deliver a one-in-a-hundred year flood. They are generally run for rich people in Geneva, Switzerland, by rich people in Greenwich, Connecticut. — Cliff Asness

These masters of the universe must be tamed in the interests of the ordinary families whose jobs and livelihoods are being put at risk ... The Tories won't say anything about the current crisis as they are completely in the pockets of the hedge funds. — Vince Cable

It's my guess that something like 5% of GDP goes to money management and itsattendant friction. I define it broadly - annuities, incentive pay, all trading, etc. Nobody else has used figures that high, but that's my guess. Worst of all, the people doing this are among the best and the brightest. Hundreds and thousands of engineers, etc. are going into hedge funds and investment banking. That is not an intelligent allocation of the brainpower of the civilization. — Charlie Munger

Most hedge funds fail: 90 percent of all the hedge funds that have ever existed have closed or gone broke. — John Lanchester

There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs, but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it. — P. J. O'Rourke

LTCM lost money when Russia defaulted on a certain class of bonds, and then they had other investments like on the spread between two different kinds of shares of Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company. Now that seems completely unrelated to Russian bonds. But they were related because other hedge funds saw similar discrepancies and they were all making similar bets. — Richard Thaler

Everyone told me it was a really stupid idea to start my own hedge fund right out of business school,' says Ackman of the idea. 'That's how I knew that it was a good idea. — Maneet Ahuja

The global financial system consists of firms in the financial services sector - banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and the like - and various governmental agencies who are charged with regulating these firms. — John L. Casti

Hedge funds have made massive leveraged credit bets, knowing that their upside is billions in fees and their downside is millions in fees. — Janet M. Tavakoli

Some PhD physicists write software or work for hedge funds, but physics still has a problem with having very smart people but not enough opportunities. — Stuart J. Russell

Improving oversight of hedge funds and other private funds is vital to their sustainability and to our economy's stability. — Jack Reed

Hedge funds try to produce above-average investment returns using tactics ranging from traditional stock-picking to complex derivative and arbitrage plays. High minimum investments, redemption restrictions and aggressive strategies make them suitable mainly for more sophisticated and well-heeled investors. — Alex Berenson

Successful hedge funds will be entrepreneurial; it is the essence of the craft. — Paul Singer

I can't figure out why anyone invests in active management, so asking me about hedge funds is just an extreme version of the same question. Since I think everything is appropriately priced, my advice would be to avoid high fees. So you can forget about hedge funds. — Eugene Fama

The underlying strategy of the Fed is to tell people, "Do you want your money to lose value in the bank, or do you want to put it in the stock market?" They're trying to push money into the stock market, into hedge funds, to temporarily bid up prices. Then, all of a sudden, the Fed can raise interest rates, let the stock market prices collapse and the people will lose even more in the stock market than they would have by the negative interest rates in the bank. So it's a pro-Wall Street financial engineering gimmick. — Michael Hudson

For most Indians in America, wealth is not inherited. Neither do we make it as heads of large hedge funds and private equity funds. For us to make it to the top, we have to use our knowhow to create great new technology products and build high-tech companies. — Romesh Wadhwani

One of the problems with hedge funds is that they are changing so rapidly. If you have the balance sheet that closed business last night, by 11 A.M. this morning, that won't tell you very much about what they're doing. — Alan Greenspan

Banks don't want certain asset classes, and that's created opportunities for private equity, hedge funds, Silicon Valley. In this case I think he was referring to some of the European banks shedding assets, and the big buyers are probably not going to be big American banks. Someone like Blackstone may have a very good chance to buy those assets, leverage them, borrow up a little bit, and do something good there. — Jamie Dimon

Insider trading by hedge funds has a long and distinguished history, dating to the days when people didn't know that there was such a thing as a hedge fund. — Gary Weiss