Media Coverage of Hedge Funds
Climate: The ‘OUR’ Between Dog and Wolf
Feb 10th, 2020 | Filed under: Newly Added, Institutional Investing, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Socially responsible investing, The Global Economy & Currencies, What about beta?, Alternative Investments in Context, ESG, Economics, Climate change, Institutional Asset Management, Hedge Funds, Macroeconomics, Private Investments, SRI and Clean Energy, Finance & Economics, Other Topics in A.I.By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association While this week’s post may harken to a certain book written by John Coates, there is a different play on the metaphor at work here, with our wheezing planet spinning in the center. Consider the wolf: powerful, aggressive, and risk-seeking. The wolf is alsoRead More
The Audacity of Opacity
Jul 15th, 2019 | Filed under: Consultants, Private Equity, Industry Size & Managers, Newly Added, Asset Managers, Institutional Investing, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, What about beta?, High-net-worth investors, Alternative Investments in Context, Endowments & Foundations, Institutional Asset Management, Family Offices, Hedge Funds, Private Investments, Allocating to A.I.By Bill Kelly, CEO, CAIA Association Why are we still talking about this? No, it’s not the central bankers and their insatiable easing tendencies, trade wars with China, or even the Women’s World Cup football match (sorry Netherlands!). These stories all make great headlines, drive news ratings, generate tickertape parades,Read More
10 Years Later: Reflections on the Madoff Meltdown
Dec 23rd, 2018 | Filed under: Due Diligence Process, Newly Added, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Insolvency, Regulatory Environment, Legislation/Court rulings, Alternative Investments in Context, Business News, The A.I. IndustryIt was just about 10 years ago (Dec. 10, 2008) that Bernie Madoff acknowledged to his sons, Mark and Andrew, that he had “absolutely nothing left” of the funds that had been entrusted to him; that the investment fund that bore his name was “just one big lie.” There isRead More
The Ups & Downs of Alternative Investing.
Oct 12th, 2015 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Alternative Investments in ContextIt's that time of year when investment advisers are talking about asset allocation. Guest columnist Diane Harrison explains why you should never give up on your alternative investments.Read More
Cause and Effect: Or, Shooting the Messenger
Aug 27th, 2015 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Behavioral financeNot even Schrodinger blamed the reporters for market irrationality. Saying out loud, "Hey, this cat is dead," doesn't kill the cat. Read More
Hedge Fund Assets to Increase a Quarter Trillion Dollars by Summer of 2016
Aug 19th, 2015 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, Institutional Investing, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsGuest columnist Don Steinbrugge on why hedge fund AUM is set for an increase over the course of the next 12 months.Read More
Delivering Alpha Highlights: Part One
Jul 19th, 2015 | Filed under: Currencies, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Alpha Hunters, Alpha Strategies, Alpha Seekers, ETFsLarry Fink is "deeply worried" that the combination of share repo with high-yield debt is "one of the reasons why we have a below trend-line economy. We're not investing in the future as much as we should." Carl Icahn, predictably, has a very different view of what ails us. Read More
Vindication for Pirrong and Irwin: Why Are Trafigura’s Profits Up?
Jun 22nd, 2015 | Filed under: Commodities, Derivatives, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, IndexesTrafigura has done quite well from the decline in crude oil prices in recent months. So well, in fact, as to throw a harsh light on a story that appeared in The New York Times in December 2013. Read More
Activism: Why the Short-termers Can Be Right
Jun 15th, 2015 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Strategies, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsMuch of the ubiquitous talk of the short-sightedness of nasty activist investors or traders is simply confused, analytically sloppy. It is a sort of confusion likely to have negative consequences to the extent that investors/traders themselves come to take it seriously. Read More
One Decision, Two Courts, Three Nations, Four Angles
Jun 3rd, 2015 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Alpha Hunters, Insolvency, Alpha SeekersFaille is struck by a brief passage in the recent Nortel decision (the Delaware side of the Delaware/Ontario concord over allocation) that suggests the degree to which the United States dominates the patent-granting as well as the patent-litigating world. Like what the U.K. is for defamation.... Read More
What Happens When You Pick A Fight With Activist Hedge Funds
May 12th, 2015 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Strategies, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Alpha StrategiesThe tear-jerker ending to a famous Broadway musical comes to Faille's mind as he contemplates the latest twist in the struggle over DuPont's board. Read More
Does the hedge fund industry benefit society?
Mar 30th, 2015 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Strategies, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Alpha Hunters, Alpha StrategiesGuest columnist Donald Steinbrugge, CFA, looks at the bad rap hedge funds have gotten and talks about why it's not deserved.Read More
Yes, Speech is Free for Short Sellers, Too
Dec 23rd, 2014 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Strategies, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Legislation/Court rulingsThe success of Wynn's lawsuit would have chilled free speech by short sellers. So let us take a moment to celebrate its quick demise at the hands of Judge Orrick. As a general rule, though, when a plaintiff quotes an expression from a transcript that, in fact, is immediately preceded by the word "not," and the plaintiff leaves the "not" out of the quote ... things are knotty. Read More
Thoughts about Latest Insider-Trading Scandal
Oct 30th, 2014 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThe story on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, about the Dendreon/Provenge investigations, focuses on trading in Dendreon stock over a three week period, beginning with the date of an e-mail sent out on June 7th, 2010. Read More
Terwilliger’s Legal Troubles: Give Mark Cuban a Cigar
Aug 7th, 2014 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Alpha Strategies, RegulatoryThe great thing about short sellers has always been that -- if they're good -- it's because they have a keen nose that can smell a boiler room. If they are open about what they're doing, they can also serve as a valuable red light for others in connection with overblown enthusiasms. Don't be the bag holder. Read More
Why are Hedge Fund Assets Reaching All-time Highs?
May 12th, 2014 | Filed under: Performance, Analytics & Metrics, Institutional Investing, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, Alpha Hunters, Asset allocationGuest columnist Don Steinbrugge looks at why allocators continue to invest in hedge funds, even when the media thinks they shouldn't.Read More
The Mere Whisper of the Name ‘Soros’
May 15th, 2013 | Filed under: Currencies, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, ForexFacile parallels notwithstanding, neither the argument Druckenmiller made at Sohn nor any other good reasons that may now exist for shorting the Aussie have a lot to do with the case against the pound in 1992. That tug-of-war occurred in a unique context, not here replicated. Read More
Hedge Funds as Metaphor: And Not in a Good Way
Apr 22nd, 2013 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsOne take-away from David Stockman's new best selling book is that the phrase "hedge fund" may well be on its way beyond descriptive significance. In the public realm, a "hedge fund" is now as much a metaphor as is a "Trojan horse." It is becoming a metaphor for any institution's failure to hedge. Read More
Hedge Funds & the Global Economic Crisis: Willing Culprits or Easy Scapegoats?
Oct 11th, 2012 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds“It was quite convenient to blame the Hedge Funds. They were an easy target, in that they were super-rich, a lot of them were American, and they were presented as bad people. They were blamed for what was happening to our banking system, which in reality was complete rubbish.”--Kate Walsh, Sunday Times, 2010.Read More
Old News (but still timely): Federal Common Law Torts Don’t Exist
Jul 6th, 2011 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsOne of the long-term trends that the hedge fund industry, and many others, face is the fact that the new media have unpredictable and sometimes unsettling consequences for many ways of doing business, including ways of finding alpha. The case of Barclays v. Fly on the Wall illustrates some of those consequences.Read More
Three split-strikes and you’re out
Feb 21st, 2011 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds"Bernie" is back in the headlines, squawking from the jailhouse about how the banks and others should have seen his scheme for what it was - and actually may have. The broader question is whether suspicions about Madoff's bogus strategy would have made a difference.Read More
Study quantifies media biases regarding hedge funds and proposes way for hedge funds to exploit them
Jul 13th, 2010 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsHedge funds and the mass media have always had a love/hate relationship (with emphasis on the "hate" part). But it turns out that an analysis of media word choices - and the choices of words in funds' own press releases - may contain valuable information. Read More
Hedge funds: Not the juiced-up, ready-to-destroy-financial-markets types many believe
Jun 9th, 2010 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsA new report on the challenges faced by the hedge fund industry reveals some somewhat positive news: that hedge funds weren't the renegade, levered up, ready-to-destroy-the-global-financial-markets types that many believed.Read More
Cold Snap: What’s a “frozen” hedge fund asset really worth?
Jan 3rd, 2010 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Operations and Risk Management, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThe administrator in charge of distributing the frozen assets of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. announced last week that it had struck a deal to return some $11 billion to creditors. But how exactly are those assets being valued?Read More
Columnist argues hedge funds should be “regulated out of existence.” Time for a reality check.
May 21st, 2009 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsEarlier this week a widely-read columnist provided a wonderful example of the challenges faced by those who wish to ban hedge funds - a lack of hard data.Read More
CDS Guilt Trip
Apr 1st, 2009 | Filed under: Institutional Investing, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsWere Credit Default Swaps of symptom or a cause of AIG's downfall? Was AIG really a "hedge fund"? These questions and more are addressed in a new paper by the traffic cop in the "intersection of law and finance". Read More
More mystical dates
Feb 13th, 2009 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThe so-called "D-Day" is here once again. With about 45 days left until the end of Q1, market watchers turn an eye toward hedge fund redemptions as a possible explanation for all that ails markets.Read More
Newsreel: Who’s writing these headlines?
Feb 11th, 2009 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsWhen we read some hedge fund headlines, we are forced to ask ourselves a critical question: WTF? (that's "Whither the facts...") Read More
Ponzipalooza
Jan 11th, 2009 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsNow everyone from pensions to governments to legitimate hedge funds are in the Ponzi game. Given this, we guess it shouldn't be that hard for the SEC to rack-up the score. Read More
Signs of Hope
Nov 16th, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsBarton Biggs says the hedge fund industry isn't coming to an end after all. What if he's right?Read More
Stigma of redemption gates fading fast
Nov 3rd, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsBack in the old days (like, in August), shutting a "redemption gate" used to be a form of punishment. Now it's more like "tough love". Read More
Leaving Lake Wobegon
Oct 13th, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsWhat faces the asset management after the dust settles? Hopefully, a sober and renewed examination of alpha across all investments - not a renunciation of it. Read More
If hedge funds are “heading for the rocks”, it’s to rescue long-only castaways
Oct 2nd, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThere's no question that it's rough seas ahead for hedge funds. But the industry will weather this storm better than many think.Read More
HedgeWorld Through the Ages
Aug 17th, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThe acquisition of Reuters by Thomson sounded the death knell last week for one of the industry's first online portals. Read More
Media Insana-ty?
Aug 14th, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsPoliticians have been doing it for years. But now journalists have begun to switch teams - joining the very hedge funds on which they used to report. Read More
Are hedge funds really “clinging to hope”?
Jul 8th, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsWhat's the difference between the hedge fund industry and Tom Hanks' character in the movie "Castaway"? Only one is clinging to hope.Read More
Respected columnist warns on hedge funds, prompting response from AIMA chapter
May 27th, 2008 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Hedge Fund Regulation, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsA popular columnist says hedge funds might be the "next shoe to drop" as a result of the credit crunch - prompting one chapter of AIMA to speak out. Read More
More media malarkey
Apr 30th, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge FundsCanada’s National Post reports that the FBI is now warning of hedge fund fraud (“FBI Warns of Hedge Fund Fraud“). But in actuality, FBI Director Robert Meuller gave a 2,000 word speech last week in which “hedge fund” appeared only once – after a lengthy discussion corporate fraud, public corruption,Read More
Media turns hostile: 130/30 now “dubious” “overblown” “faddish” “hype”
Apr 21st, 2008 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, 130/30A widely-syndicated column about the 130/30 "fad" misses the mark and sets the stage for years of public confusion regarding short-extension strategies.Read More
Is high hedge fund compensation really that new?
Apr 17th, 2008 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThere is little debate that top hedge fund managers make astronomical amounts of money. But are such amounts actually that new? If not, why are they an issue now?Read More
AIMA comes out swinging
Apr 8th, 2008 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThe closest thing hedge fund managers have to a global trade association is apparently fed up with reading how its members are at the root of all that is evil.Read More
The assets are falling! The assets are falling!
Nov 11th, 2007 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsIt's deja vu all over again this month as one early-reporting database pronounces that hedge fund assets - at least in one category - shrank last month.Read More
It’s Halloween and you know what that means for some media outlets…
Oct 31st, 2007 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsIt's Halloween and you know what that means: spooky stories of haunted hedge funds and private equity slashers. This year's tale is presented by the London Daily Telegraph.Read More
Two ways to present “balance” in 130/30 discussion
Oct 25th, 2007 | Filed under: Media Coverage of Hedge Funds, 130/30Two articles this week aim to provide a "balanced" view of 1X0/X0 funds. One because its analysis is dispassionate and one because it tries its darndest to create controversy.Read More
New York Times Dispels Hedge Fund Bubble Mythology – Nearly
Jul 8th, 2007 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsThe New York Times concludes that there is little risk of a dot-com-style implosion of the hedge fund industry. We generally agree with this assertion. But recent hedge fund IPOs add a new dimension that now gives us pause.Read More
Bridgewater gives “alpha-centric” a thumbs-up
Jun 4th, 2007 | Filed under: Institutional Investing, Media Coverage of Hedge Funds"Alpha centric" turns out to be more than just a goofy term used by us as a placeholder until something better comes along.Read More
New York Post latest to butcher hedge fund risk story
May 7th, 2007 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsIn a lesson on how rumors start, The New York Post reports this week that the Fed has issued an "unusual warning". This would be a great story, if only it was true...Read More
War of the Worlds (1938 version) unfolds on CNBC
May 6th, 2007 | Filed under: Hedge Fund Industry Trends, Media Coverage of Hedge FundsOn Wednesday, May 2, Reuters ran a story about a New York Fed report on hedge fund correlation. But it appears that Reuters and several of its customers were a little to hasty going to print. Read More