Hacker News Reader

Note that "hedge funds" is kind of a misnomer. A hedge fund is just like any other fund, except that it's less regulated and exclusively for rich people (the thinking being that rich people need less gov't regulation over their money because, well, they're rich).

They don't make money by literally "hedging their bets."

View on HN

> exclusively for rich people

No, it is not. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) alone had more than $10 billion invested in hedge funds in 2007.

So your average Joe should not wish evil to hedge fund managers, his retirement money is at stake.

Alternatively, perhaps CalPERS shouldn't be risking average Joe's retirement money by putting money into unregulated speculative investment pools. There's no reason to expect that hedge funds will deliver superior risk-adjusted returns compared to any other asset class. And there are some really horrible structural problems with most hedge funds which make them poor choices for pensions.

I did not mean to imply otherwise.

But yes, I should have been clear: rich people and rich organizations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com