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 FundsOctober 30 seems to have become “scary hedge fund day” in the UK - a precursor to Halloween when the mainstream media delivers outlandish conclusions about hedge funds that go bump in the night (see posting on last year’s best in class, the Economist).
The London Daily Telegraph steps up this year to deliver a hatchet job on hedge funds. This entertaining article (”Tall Tales: Don’t buy the hedge fund fairy story“) references a recent survey by Barclays and the Economist Intelligence Unit and suggests that hedge funds are selling “magic beans”, a la the story Jack and the Bean Stock.
The article’s main thesis is that more people plan to invest in hedge funds and private equity despite the fact that they are not familiar with them:
“…according to Barclays, they [investors interviewed for the report] plan to ditch stocks and shares and put hedge funds and private equity at the top of their buy lists instead – despite the fact that more than two-thirds of them admitted that they did not understand how such investments worked.”
Like any haunted house, looking beyond the facade reveals a situation that is far less dramatic or alarming.
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