INTRODUCTION
Famed hedge fund manager Mario Gabelli wrote in 2002: "Today, if asked to define a hedge fund, I suspect most folks would characterize it as a highly speculative vehicle for unwitting fat cats and careless financial institutions to lose their shirts." This characterization stems from the hedge fund's recent history, which
? began with the headline-making collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998 and
? continued with the sensational meltdown of the Tiger Funds in March of 2000,
? followed by the reorganization of the once high-flying Quantum Fund in April of 2000
? and just ten days back Amaranth went broke losing
$6 billion because of bad natural gas trades in less than one month
These high-profile incidents overshadow more than half a century of hedge fund history that began when Alfred Winslow Jones launched the first hedge fund in 1949.
WHAT'S A HEDGE FUND?
An aggressively managed portfolio of investments that uses
? advanced investment strategies such as
? leverage (?Arbitrage inefficiencies are very small and in order to get a sizeable return, high turnover is required. Leverage accomplishes the same. This precisely is what makes investment in hedge funds a very risky proposition while at the same time allowing them to gain huge profits.)
? long, short and
? derivative positions
? in both domestic and international markets
? with the goal of generating high returns (either in an absolute sense or over a specified market benchmark).
Legally, hedge funds are most often set up as private ...