More Money Than God

What Is a Hedge Fund?

Published on September 15, 2016 in Investing by Olivia

For starters, we all know what “hedging” means. It means to reduce the amount of risk you are open to, most commonly heard in the phrase, “hedging your bet.” While this definition once applied to the hedge fund, today it totally does not.

Hedge funds and the people who run them are particularly interesting because they are a sensational representation of the very wealthy. Known for being extravagant, highly opinionated, and very happy living in a place of extreme risk, hedge fund managers have been loosely referred to as “masters of the universe.”

Hedge funds were born in 1949 when Alfred Winslow Jones formed the first as a new sort of investing strategy where a fund manager would “hedge,” or try to avoid significant loss by going short in positions (shorting a stock means that you believe the value is going to decrease, so you bet against it – learn more here), as well as going long (invest in securities with the intention that these stocks and bonds are all going to increase in value). By carefully balancing the risk the fund was exposed to, potential risk was mitigated. This part is key, and is where the name hedge fund is derived from.

Today, hedge funds largely make grand scale speculative investments where they are betting on a huge upside based on their predictions for market movements and economic conditions – often with no hedging involved. These funds are playing to beat the market on a macro scale and their ability to do this is referred to as “alpha.” When investments of this scale are made, the potential for upside is massive, but the potential for loss is also massive and can have the ability to shut a hedge fund down. The thing about hedge funds is that they are typically built on the reputation of the managing partner or partners and their ability to beat the market and provide investors with huge returns – it’s similar to stock promoters (smaller scale, and likely more relatable as we all know one); have a few big public losses under your belt and you’re going to have a very challenging time raising money for your fund or next venture.

A particularly memorable hedge fund fail involved Bernie Madoff, the guy who was caught running a Ponzi scheme and highly publicized as the face of American greed culture. In 2008 he was sentenced to 150 years in prison, as well as a $170 billion in restitution fees. Here’s how he scammed investors out of $65 billion.

The details:

As with any investment that offers an enormous upside or downside, hedge funds are only open to accredited investors, people who can stand to lose what they invest. In the US, investors must have a “net worth exceeding $1 million excluding their primary residence.” (Forbes)
Hedge funds love leverage. “Hedge funds will often use borrowed money to amplify their returns. As we saw during the financial crisis of 2008 [and in the movie, The Big Short], leverage can also wipe out hedge funds.” (Forbes)
Hedge fund managers are pretty free to act as they wish with their pool of investor money, as long as they disclose up front their investment strategy to investors.
And the reason we read about their lavish lives and extreme wealth? The fee structure on a hedge fund is unlike anything else: 20% of all gains generated in addition to a 2% asset management fee. So when they win, they win BIG.

Feature image via blog.kosten.co

Book Club: September

Published on September 9, 2016 in Blog by Olivia

There are many great books out there for the reader with an interest in finance or politics, and here are my favourites, as well as the ones that are sitting on the bedside table just waiting to be cracked:

Recommendations, in no particular order:

Street Freak, by Jared Dillian

What it’s about: A Lehman Brothers trader who falls into the crazed Wall Street lifestyle of complete obnoxiousness: money, hookers and drugs, before the bank defaults and collapses. This is Dillian’s real life story and he tells it well. Perfect for the finance newbie.

My rating: Five stars. This is one of the first things I ever read that piqued my interest in finance.

The Wolf of Wall Street, by Jordan Belfort

What it’s about: You already know the story so you don’t need me to explain it, but the book is worth a read even if you’ve seen the movie. It’s also a great introduction to what life is was like on Wall Street and in brokerages – and you won’t be able to help becoming a fan of Belfort.

My rating: Five stars, it’s sensational and ridiculous and a fantastic ride.

Makers and Takers, by Rana Foroohar

What it’s about: “Eight years on from the biggest market meltdown since the Great Depression, the key lessons of the crisis of 2008 still remain unlearned—and our financial system is just as vulnerable as ever.” Foroohar is a sharp writer who highlights the utter financialization of the American economy. Also find her work in Time Magazine, and find her on Twitter here.

My rating: Four stars, still reading.

More Money Than God, by Sebastian Mallaby

What it’s about: “Splendid…the definitive history of the hedge fund, a compelling narrative full of larger-than-life characters and dramatic tales.” – The Washington Post

My rating: Two and a half stars. Interesting, but challenging to follow.

Blockchain Revolution, by Don & Alex Tapscott

What it’s about: “The technology likely to have the greatest impact on the future of the world economy has arrived, and it’s not self-driving cars, solar energy, or artificial intelligence. It’s called the blockchain.”

My rating: Four stars so far, still reading.

An Unfinished Life, John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963, by Robert Dallek

What it’s about: The book brings “to light new revelations about JFK’s health, his love affairs, his brothers and father, and the path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement if he had survived. A blockbuster bestseller, the book was embraced by critics and readers as a landmark assessment of [America’s] 35^th president.”

My rating: five fantastic stars, despite his womanizing, you will fall in love with JFK, his wit, and his charm.

Soon to be read:

Flash Boys, by Michael Lewis

What it’s about: “Flash Boys is about a small group of Wall Street guys who figure out that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders and that, post–financial crisis, the markets have become not more free but less, and more controlled by the big Wall Street banks. Working at different firms, they come to this realization separately; but after they discover one another, the flash boys band together and set out to reform the financial markets. This they do by creating an exchange in which high-frequency trading—source of the most intractable problems—will have no advantage whatsoever.”

The Big Short, by Michael Lewis

What it’s about: You know the story, you saw the movie. It’s suuuucchh a good movie, perfectly cast in my opinion. Anyway, I haven’t read the book but I imagine if the movie was that good, then the book is likely to be even better – though definitely filled with a lot more detail around the financial industry and likely not as easy to follow as the movie was. Amazon says: “The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn’t shine and the SEC doesn’t dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can’t pay their debts.”

Reagan, The Life, by H. W. Brands

What it’s about: “Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan’s personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today.”

Titan, by Ron Chernow

What it’s about: “John D. Rockefeller, Sr. – history’s first billionaire and the patriarch of America’s most famous dynasty – is an icon whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil.”

Sacred Economics : Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, by Charles Eisenstein

What it’s about: Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

The Kennedy Half-Century, by Larry J. Sabato

What it’s about: Sabato reexamines JFK’s assassination using heretofore unseen information to which he has had unique access, then documents the extraordinary effect the assassination has had on Americans of every modern generation through the most extensive survey ever undertaken on the public’s view of a historical figure.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, by Barbara Leaming

What its about: Leaming’s extraordinary and deeply sensitive biography is the first book to document Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ brutal, lonely and valiant thirty-one year struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that followed JFK’s assassination. Here is the woman as she has never been seen before. In heartrending detail, we witness a struggle that unfolded at times before our own eyes, but which we failed to understand.

Feature image taken by me, and posted to Instagram just before taking off to Whistler for the weekend.

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