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Browse by CategoryHome » Category List » AUDIENCE: General
Making a negative call? Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.15 July 2008Sure, naked shorting and starting false rumours are socially undesirable. But isn’t there something a little ironic in the SEC’s clamp-down on negative opinions? Even the youngest junior analysts can remember a day not too long ago when the scarcity of any negative ratings was considered proof that research was actually just a lap-dog of the sell-side. Back then, with only one or two percent of analyst recommendations of the negative variety, the SEC wanted to see more “sell!” and less “buy!”. After peaking in 2003, sell ratings are still relatively rare - but they may become even rarer if the SEC starts to investigate people who don’t happen to love a particular stock. As Thomson reported today:
In May 2002, the SEC issued new rules to remove what it felt was a muzzle on analysts’ negative views. In the press release announcing its new rules, the commission said its goal was:
If the threat of being fired for issuing negative recommendations was conflict of interest, then what about the new threat of being thrown in jail for peddling negativity? Ironically, analysts now face another conflict of interest - keep your mouth shut about negative views or get investigated by the SEC. In an Orwellian twist, it seems that the SEC has pulled those muzzles out of storage and may be dusting them off right now.
Comments »Are hedge funds really “clinging to hope”?8 July 2008
Battered funds cling to hope of recovery (Financial News): “Hedge funds are struggling to shake off their worst quarter since records began…” Hedge fund investors want out sooner, not later (Reuters): “Worried about hedge funds’ low returns and high fees, more well-heeled investors are now talking about getting out of these loosely regulated portfolios than getting into them…” HNWIs cool on allocation to hedge funds (Hedge Funds Review): “Allocation to hedge funds from high net worth individuals (HNWIs) slipped to 9% in 2007 from 10% in 2006…” Tough Markets Alter HF Managers’ Practices (HedgeWorld): “Last year’s turbulent market environment prompted hedge fund managers around the world to lower leverage ratios and move a significant share of their assets into cash…” Investor Allocations to Hedge Funds Jump 28% (Financial News): “Institutional investors allocated $195 billion to hedge funds last year, a 28% increase over 2006 as institutional money continues to flow to fund managers despite a decline in performance…” Pension Assets in Alternatives up 40% (HedgeWorld): “Alternative assets managed on behalf of pension funds by the world’s 99 largest investment managers grew by 40%…” Hedge fund exodus fails to surface (IPE): “Even with falling returns, institutional investors are still happy to invest in hedge funds, according to research-based consultant Greenwich Associates…” High Growth Reported for the Hedge Funds in Europe 2008 (MarketWatch): A new report concludes “The European Hedge fund market is going through a period of exponential growth”
Comments »Newsreel: Hedge fund headhunting, M&A, and scapegoats3 July 2008
Asia to Create Thousands of Hedge Fund Jobs, Pinnacle Says: And it appears that some of those hedge fund recruiters are likely to be located in Asia. First Half 2008 Sets Record for Alternatives Manager M&A: Putnam Lovell predicts “In the next 12 months, we expect strong M&A activity involving battered banks and other financial institutions divesting asset management businesses to raise capital, and continued record demand for alternatives.” Feds Cast Scapegoat Net, Snag Cioffi and Tannin: Bloomberg’s Caroline Baum, author of the book “Just What I Said”, reiterates just what we said last week about the fundamental questions raised by the recent Bear Stearns indictments. Hedge-fund mystique: the need for transparency: The Australian reports that Morningstar VP of research says it’s time for hedge funds to come clean. US Presidential Election May Spur Hedge Fund Regulation: Then again, hedge funds may have no choice if this guy is right. Finding alpha with few bets: Seeking to avoid short-selling, institutions are looking to “concentrated” funds for long-only alpha. (ed: While not technically short-selling, a concentrated portfolio has a negative weighting vs. its benchmark in a huge number of names and a positive weighting in select others - raising interesting questions about whether a long/short fund is really that different.)
Comments »Cap Intro: The new emphasis for prime brokers. But how much do funds care?1 July 2008
At around the same time, eFinancial News noted…
But a recent survey of hedge funds raises some questions about what really attracts and retains prime brokerage clients. AllAboutAlpha.com media partner FINalternatives just released the results of its 2008 prime brokerage survey. It concludes that the new focus on cap intro may not be generating a lot of fans:
Comments »Hedge fund seeding: “hot” or “not”?26 June 2008
But strangely absent from the line-up is hedge fund seeding. The strategy seems to run hot and cold and would surely have elicited some chippy debate. (okay, maybe not). At the beginning of this year, seeding was hot (see related posting). Then it was not (see related posting). And with the continuation of a difficult fundraising environment for hedge funds, seeding is hot again. In fact, it was in the news several times last week. eFinancial News reports on HFR data showing that new hedge fund launches are at their lowest level in 8 years. One reason, suggests eFinancial News…
Comments »Is the mutual fund industry competitive enough?25 June 2008
But price competition seems to have bypassed one particular fixed-cost business - the money management business. This, according to an article in the Journal of Investing that was made available for free recently. The paper by John Haslem of the University of Maryland, Kent Baker of the American University and David Smith of SUNY at Albany has the benign-sounding title “Identification and Performance of Equity Mutual Funds with High Management Fees and Expense Ratios”. But don’t be fooled. The authors rail against what they see as a lack of price competition in the US (and by extension the global-) mutual fund industry before examining the relationship between fees and performance. They even name names - highlighting the US mutual funds with the highest relative fees in the land. In their words:
Comments »Alpha Magazine’s New Hall of Fame24 June 2008
Thankfully, our good friends at Alpha Magazine have just launched their own hall of fame, appropriately called the “Alpha’s Hedge Fund Hall of Fame“. It will contain several great write-ups on hedge fund legends such as:
Comments »130/30 bull run still has some legs: S&P24 June 2008
Taking a page from Andrew Lo, co-author of the recent academic paper “130/30: The New Long-only“, S&P’s Srikant Dash told a London audience earlier this week that “Asset managers are moving into this area and eventually these funds will take a significant share from traditional active funds”. This year may not be a bust though. Referring to one particularly aggressive market estimate, another S&P official apparently said 2008 could also be shaping up to be a barn-burner:
According to Hedge Funds Review, S&P is launching two new 130/30 indices later this year. This, after an S&P-authored research paper recently argued that the best benchmark for 130/30 funds is probably a long-only index (see related posting, read report). Maybe that was a different “S&P” (?)
Comments »A closer look at the CSX/TCI and Bear Stearns cases21 June 2008
Many of the facts surrounding each case have been obfuscated by sensational reporting. CNN’s Lou Dobb’s demanded, for example, that US legislators block the hostile take-over of CSX by London-based activist hedge fund TCI on national security grounds. Likewise, many mass media outlets seem to have bought into prosecutors’ arguments that the duo who ran Bear Stearns’ now infamous CDO fund were personally responsible for the entire global credit crunch.
Comments »Hedge funds starting to get “voted off the island”19 June 2008
Usually, the term “shakeout” refers to the culling of weaker, smaller players in an industry in favour of the larger and more dominant competitors. So it’s striking that Business Week this week suggests that the “parade of cave-ins” in Hedgistan included funds managed by major financial institutions (e.g. Citi, UBS, and parade-marshal Bear Stearns). The ones doing the culling? Pure play asset managers such as Bridgewater and BGI. In fairness, JP Morgan (which bought and subsequently grew Highbridge) and Goldman (which today announced its hide was saved in Q2 by its asset management business), buck the trend. But 8 of the top 10 largest hedge fund managers in Alpha magazine’s listing of the largest US hedge funds last month were NOT run by investment banks or other large financial services firms (we’d say that #9 BGI runs pretty independently of Barclays). So the question remains, what’s up with the bank-run hedge funds? Despite a rocky road for some bank-owned hedge funds, size continues to be an advantage. Reports BusinessWeek:
Comments »When it comes to hedge fund compensation, “social usefulness” is a red-herring18 June 2008
We proposed a number of hypotheses to explain this apparent double-standard. One was that traditional entrepreneurs created a product or service of tangible value. However, the value created by hedge fund managers (provision of liquidity etc.) is intangible at best. As a result, hedge fund managers are often accused of simply “re-arranging the chairs”, not building them. But a letter in last Thuraday’s New York Times by John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute reminded us how traditional entrepreneurs shouldn’t be given a free ride since they create something tangible. Berlau was responding to a June 10 Times Op-Ed (IHT reprint here) that said:
Comments »Busy week on the alpha-centric news beat15 June 2008
“Best Blogs”: Speaking of P&I, we think they are one of the best. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what they said about us in their recent ranking of “best blogs” (where they ranked us #9). Increased regs not in the cards for hedge funds: Morningstar says their database is “the closest hedge funds are going to come to oversight” in the near future. Seed capital providers now vital for funds: The FT reports that as assets get harder to raise, some are saying “seeders” are just about the only way to go for hedge fund start-ups. Value Partners Says Smaller Hedge Funds Face Takeover: …and if smaller funds don’t have access to a sugar-daddy ”seeder”, guess what…
Comments »Buffett’s horse race12 June 2008
Comments »Investors pull $6b from hedge funds. So what’s the alternative “alternative”?11 June 2008
If you are a member of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association, you are probably familiar with the on-going polling conducted by the association each month. Survey topics are primarily focused on those areas for which market knowledge is currently fragmented or quickly evolving. In May, the CAIA curriculum survey focused on the growing area of “alternative alternative” or “alt-alt” investments. While there is no settled consensus on the boundaries of the alt-alt universe, the alt-alt universe is usually taken to include investments outside of traditional securities markets. Examples of alt-alts include weather derivatives, carbon credits, niche assets such as wine and art, litigation claims, insurance claims, and intellectual property rights such as patents.
Comments »Phil Goldstein Update11 June 2008
The latest battle is over his First Amendment right to communicate with the public (see previous posting). Current US regulations prevent investors under a certain wealth threshold from investing in unregulated investment funds (collectively “hedge funds” - although that’s a misnomer). Goldstein contends that he has the right to free speech however, even if that speech is about his hedge fund. Further, this right to free speech, argues Goldstein, is not in conflict with the SEC’s rules barring any particular group from actually investing in hedge funds. Reports Fortune:
Comments »PwC Survey finds hedgies report more frequently than most other alternative asset managers9 June 2008
So are hedge fund managers “held to the same standard of disclosure as other investments”? According to an extensive survey of hedge, private equity, real estate, infrastructure and commodity funds released last month by PwC, they may actually be. In fact, the survey finds that hedge fund managers report more frequently than managers of other alternative assets.
Comments »Leading academics on Freud, finance and “quacks”4 June 2008Richard Taffler on Emotional Finance
Richard Taffler is a finance and accounting professor at the University of Edinburgh with an uncommon command of psychology. He is one of the proponents of a new field of study called emotional finance (see a previous guest posting on this topic). Unlike its close relative “behavioural finance”, Taffler’s “emotional” version focuses on the deep psychological affirmations received by making particular investment decisions. His presentation borrowed from psychoanalysis and was probably the first presentation we’ve ever seen at a hedge fund conference that included the words “Freud”, “Oedipal”, and “infantile”. He puts this framework to use by attempting to explain the collective delusion investors experienced during the dot-com bubble (see his academic paper on the topic – actually quite readable).
Comments »Silos, flesh wounds, the “disintermediation” of poultry, and a call to action4 June 2008More from London (see yesterday’s posting for background)… A pension plan as a financial services firm
It turns out that this view of the hedge fund portfolio as a sort of arm’s length asset manager with only one client can also be applied to the pension fund as a whole. That’s how one major private pension fund described it to a gathering here in London today – as a “financial firm that produces pensions.” This view also has implications for “liability-driven investing” (LDI). Some said that the process of liability-matching and return-enhancing should be kept separate within this financial services firm. For example, one major pension fund here created a team focused on removing interest rate and inflation risk (via a “matching portfolio” designed to match the plan’s future liabilities to pensioners) and a separate team focused solely on trying to squeeze additional returns out of those assets. In true arm’s length fashion, the “return portfolio” is required to literally borrow assets from the matching portfolio – creating a real economic incentive to beat the short-term rates charged on this internal loan.
Comments »Day one from the un-named event in London2 June 2008We report today from a three-day London gathering of some of the world’s largest institutional investors and the hedge funds that serve them (see postings from sister event in Boston last fall). The event focuses not on hedge funds per se, but on how institutional investors use them (portable alpha, fees, alpha/beta separation, 130/30, alternative beta, analytics etc…all the good stuff). In order to create an open atmosphere for candid discussion, organizers have us on a tight leash (there are otherwise no media present here and we can’t even tell you the name of the event). And while we can’t really tell you who said what today, we can pass along some of the major themes from the conference floor. Here’s some of what we heard… Hedge Funds: Innovation from the garage?
Most here held the opinion that “hedge funds” was no longer a useful definition of an asset class. One panellist put it in terms of innovation. He described hedge fund companies as a “platform for innovation”. In an allusion to innovation in the technology sector, he said that “innovation usually happens in garages”, not in large corporations (a clear reference to the oft-cited garage where tech behemoth Hewlett Packard was born - pictured above). In other words, it may be difficult for a large traditional manager to deliver on the major promise of the hedge fund sector - innovation. Issues such as profit- (and risk-) sharing, for example, can often confound the efforts of long-only managers (e.g. banks – see related WSJ piece from last week) to maintain hedge fund programs over the long term.
Comments »Weekly Newsreel: Free WiFi Edition1 June 2008
Incubators on look-out for start-up managers: According to the FT, “The upheaval in global capital markets is creating abundant new investment targets for hedge fund incubators.” Road to hedge fund riches is rockier now: On the other hand, the Guardian reports that “Starting a hedge fund was long considered the road to riches for money managers, but the path has become much rockier in the last months.” ICG head slams hedge fund pay: From the hedge fund compensation beat, we bring you one well-paid manager who apparently has a beef with the (market-to-market) remuneration of his industry colleagues.
Comments »One more 130/30 survey to add to the pile…31 May 2008In a follow-up from a posting last week, Terrapinn’s Quant Invest 2008 folks in London just completed a survey of the institutional investment intentions of 120 pensions, endowments, insurance companies and family offices. Right in the middle at 63% is, you guessed it, 130/30…
Comments »Academic rains on weather/return correlation parade29 May 2008In our monthly column featuring the thoughts of a member of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association, we feature an active publisher in highly rated journals who has recently written an article on weather variables and their impact on financial markets. Wessel Marquering, Ph.D., CAIA, is quantitative researcher at the Talergroup. Marquering and fellow researcher Ben Jacobson wrote an interesting paper on weather and financial markets for the Journal of Banking & Finance. What follows are Marquering’s thoughts on the promise and peril of trying to extract alpha from the weather. Alpha in the Weather: Alternative Viewpoints, powered by CAIA
As readers of this website are no doubt aware, weather derivatives trading is taking off - with trading volumes going through the roof and more hedge funds venturing into this space. Basically, a weather derivative is a financial product in which two parties agree to exchange cash flows determined by reference to a weather index. The reference indices include temperature, rainfall, wind speed, humidity, snowfall, to name a few, but the most heavily traded contracts are based on temperature indices. On the one hand, weather derivatives can be used to manage risk, by insuring for example farmers against a bad crop, as an insurance against bad weather on holidays, by decreasing the exposure to temperature-related risk factors, etc. On the other hand, they have become a relatively new way to generate alpha.
Comments »New surveys on August quant meltdown: Investors have learned a lesson. But have managers?28 May 2008“We essentially have 10,000 Ph.D.s looking at the same data.” That’s how Vadim Zlotnikov, CIO for growth equities at AllianceBernstein described the world of quant funds to the Annual Meeting of the CFA Institute last week in Vancouver. Zlotnikov was talking about the findings of a new paper by the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute based on a survey of asset managers, consultants and investors. A press release announcing the study confirms what is now commonly believed, that August’s mayhem was mainly the result of quant hedge funds yelling “Fire!” and running for the exits (see related posting).
Larry Siegel, the Director of the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute (see previous guest posting), points out the supreme irony of this development:
Comments »Respected columnist warns on hedge funds, prompting response from AIMA chapter27 May 2008Amongst public relations professionals, there is an axiom that goes something like this: In the absence of the complete story, journalists are forced to create their own conclusions. Many companies have learned that starving the news media of the facts they demand often backfires. In such a situation, journalists a) have no choice but to attempt to fill in the gaps with conjecture and b) often do so totally unchallenged. So “filling in the gaps” is actually a very rational response when you think about it. A column on Monday by one of Canada’s most respected commentators makes this point in spades. In a piece entitled “Hedge Funds: the credit crunch’s enigma“, Globe & Mail columnist Eric Reguly makes a series of remarks about hedge funds that even he suggests is based on little, if any, hard facts. Clearly miffed about another drive-by smearing, the Canadian Chapter of AIMA (the Alternative Investment Management Association) followed its parent organization’s lead this week by speaking out - this time in a letter to Reguly obtained by AllAboutAlpha.com yesterday. As you may recall, AIMA’s London headquarters issued a rare rebuke of hedge fund media coverage last month in the form of a press release quoting the organization’s Chief Executive (see related posting, read press release). Taken together, these responses suggest AIMA is taking a more active stance on educating the media and the public at large about alternative investments. And that’s a good thing. Here’s what Reguly said about hedge funds on Monday:
Comments »Economist article’s “catchy” title may overstate complexity a little26 May 2008
“Catch” #1: If everyone invested in hedge funds, the average hedge fund would not beat the index.
Put forth as a sort of “victim of its own success” argument, this is a restatement of William Sharpe’s oft-cited 1991 article in the Financial Analysts Journal. In a way, everyone is already “investing in hedge funds” since every investor who is not a passive investor necessarily owns a small piece of (pure) active management embedded in their portfolios. So this argument, while entirely valid, isn’t specific to alternative investments. It’s also a “Catch 2%” for mutual funds or a “Catch 50 bps” for active long-only institutional investors. “Catch” #2: Endowments and pensions pride themselves on their ability to earn an illiquidity premium, yet they strive for diversification.
Comments »“Non-top-100″ hedge funds continue to flat-line25 May 2008
The result is often a common assumption that starting a hedge fund is easy. For example, people will sometimes be overheard saying “everyone and their dog is starting a hedge fund” or “they’re sprouting up like weeds” or “there are over 10,000 of these funds with new ones being created every day”. In other words, the media often seems to set the tone more than the actual assets managed by the industry. You’d think that if you golfed with a bunch of hedge fund managers, they’d all be betting thousands of dollars in each hole, drinking champagne and lighting their cigars with twenties. But (unfortunately for aspiring hedgies) that’s an inaccurate view of the industry as a whole. Last year, we commented on the growing phenomenon of concentration in the hedge fund industry. When the growth of the top 100 hedge funds was removed from last year’s industry size figures, it turned out that the remainder of the industry (99% of the widely assumed 10,000 hedge funds in existence) were actually not growing at all. This, as the media trumpeted how the industry was essentially taking over the world. Well it appears from this year’s data from Alpha magazine that industry concentration continues unabated (press release). Last year 69% of hedge fund assets were managed by the top 100 firms. This year, 75% of the world’s hedge fund assets were managed by the top 100 firms. According to Alpha, this select group of mega-managers increased assets by $350 billion (from $1 trillion to $1.35 trillion) over the past year.
Comments »Weekly Newsreel: Madrid, Stockholm, Maple Syrup and 130/3025 May 2008
Nervous alternatives managers could be leaving alpha on the table: P&I reports from ”AlphaMax” in Madrid that “Fees became a point of contention between pension fund executives and hedge fund managers…with the pension executives arguing that the typical hedge fund management fee of 2% and performance fee of 20% can be a deterrent…” 8 out of 10 managers fail to add value: Meanwhile in Stockholm, Watson Wyatt’s Roger Urwin tells another conference why pensions have an allergy to “2 and 20″.
Comments »Massachusetts slams barn door, watches horse run down the lane to New York22 May 2008
The Secretary of State for Massachusetts William Galvin issued a cease and desist order to a fund manager earlier this week after a 2 week investigation that turned up a panoply of alleged regulatory breeches dating back over the past decade. The tale would end there if it weren’t for the fact that any story including the words “Galvin” and “hedge fund” is sure to generate a lot of interest. As you may recall, this was the same William Galvin who mixed it up with hedge fund manager Phil Goldstein recently over his unsecure website (see related posting). So it would appear that this just might be another attempt to draw (not entirely unwarranted) attention to potential pitfalls of not requiring all investment managers, including hedge funds to register with authorities. But while it appears as though the manager in this case may have indeed been in breach of securities regulations, we have trouble believing for a minute that this case was randomly targeted by the state. In addition to allegedly selling units of his fund to investors that did not meet minimum wealth levels, the complaint suggests that the manager, Michael Regan, may have also lost all investors’ money. The question remains, however, was any loss a result of a lack of some kind of oversight?
Comments »A review of recent 130/30 surveys19 May 2008
So is 130/30 the New Coke of asset management? Will we eventually pine for the “classic” version of our favorite active managers? This survey, for one, suggests not - only 14% of pensions thought 130/30 was a “passing trend”. This is another in a growing body of surveys on 130/30 (of which our 2007 survey with Terrapinn is a part). So we thought this might be a good time for a re-cap. Below is a quick list of all the 130/30 industry surveys we can immediately recall (in chronological order). If we have missed any, please let us know. 2006
Comments »130/30 a “silly gimmick” or a ($3b) “important new mandate”?19 May 2008
There’s no question shorting requires “a different skill set”. But like any skill-set, these skills can be bought and sold by participants in the asset management industry - enabling long/short managers and even (gasp!) long-only managers to rapidly move onto a level playing field with seasoned short-sellers. Unless you consider some kind of inherent culture that makes for successful shorting, no asset manager can hope to erect barriers to entry in this burgeoning niche. In our view, it’s just not that fundamentally unique when compared to long-only or long-short. Long-only managers have been immigrating to the Republic of 130/30 for some time. Now the republic’s other border (the one it shares with Hedgistan) is also experiencing an increase in traffic. Italy’s Banca Fideuram handed over a whopping $3 billion mandate to hedge fund behemoth GLG recently. As HedgeWorld reports this week, the bank says:
That’s Italian for “It’s all about alpha”.
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The list of stories below was lifted from the most recent edition of our “
Last fall, after a particularly busy period on the pro-am hedge fund conference circuit, we noted that prime broker salespeople seemed to all be updating their business card to include the title “cap intro”. Apparently, capital introduction (a.k.a. fund raising assistance) was seen as a great way to differentiate one’s self from the growing throngs of prime brokerages. 
A few years ago, before social networking was all the rage, a website called “
Industries dominated by fixed costs tend to experience a lot of price competition. You don’t have to look any further than the airline industry to find evidence of this economic axiom. In fact, price competition is often even more fierce in growth industries where price cuts are enabled by economies of scale. For example, the Model T Ford had a price tag of $850 when it was launched - blowing away most rivals priced in the $2000-$3000 range. Within a few years, the Model T MSRP was around $300 - illustrating to the world the new economics of scale.
The AllAboutAlpha.com “
Hedge Funds Review reports that S&P is telling clients that 130/30 is “
Two recent court cases have captured the attention of hedge funds. One pits a corporate raider cum philanthropist (TCI) against the increasingly desperate management of a old-line 100,000-car railroad (CSX). The other accuses two average-Joe hedge fund managers as the ones who originally infected patient zero in the global credit pandemic (Bear Stearns’ High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund or “BSHGSCSELF” for short)
As the hedge fund industry matures, assets are flowing disproportionately to the larger players in what some have called a “shakeout”. Taking a page from TV’s “Survivor”, investors are apparently starting to vote smaller players off the (Manhattan) island. 
After the release of Alpha Magazine’s rankings of the highest-paid hedge fund managers (e.g. 
A lot has been written in the past few days about Warren Buffett’s bet with hedge fund firm Protege Partners that the firm couldn’t beat the S&P 500 over 10 years. We’ve taken an interest in this story because it hits at the heart of the active/passive (alpha/beta) debate. After reading various media interpretations of the bet and the resulting comments from readers at several websites, we offer the following observations:
There are 
Fortune released 
Think hedge funds are secretive? Think they do their best to communicate with investors as little as possible and get visibly upset when investors call? You’re not alone. Stereotypes of the super-secret hedge fund abound. But in the absence of specific regulation, how much transparency is enough? As the Journal of Wealth Management 
Two sessions featuring academics today illustrated why this is one of our favourite events on the pro-am hedge fund conference tour (see 
As some pension funds begin to shift from funds of funds to single-manager hedge funds, they usually create what amounts to their own internal fund of funds. The only difference between this fund of funds and a “real” fund of funds is that the pension has only one client: its own pension plan. 
After years of steady growth, it’s no surprise that traditional long-only money managers have been licking their chops over the potential to offer hedge funds. Meanwhile, hedge funds have been strangely attracted to the gazillions of dollars under management by the long-only managers. Today in London, managers and investors debated the relative merits, not of hedge funds and long-only funds, but of hedge fund management companies and long-only management companies. While many people can tell you the difference between a hedge fund and a traditional long-only fund, few seem to agree on the unique characteristics of each type of company.
It always confused me how airline business lounges could charge extra for WiFi access. After charging an arm and a leg for lie-flat seats and 290 hours of TV reruns, airlines still make you crack open the AllAboutAlpha.com corporate credit card just to access the web. Well, the friendly folks at our local Star Alliance lounge have finally come to their senses, providing me with the (free) pleasure of uploading a bunch of news stories we’ve been watching this week but didn’t get a chance to write about… 
Special to AllAboutAlpha.com by: Dr. Wessel Marquering, CAIA, 
This week’s 
When people talk about how the hedge fund industry growing or shrinking, they are usually referring to hedge funds as a social and media phenomenon, not the more technical definitions such as assets under management. 
Stories of regulatory infractions are usually a great antidote for insomnia. But this one’s a hum-dinger. 
Apparently, 130/30 isn’t going away anytime soon. 
Doug Kass of