what is a hedge fund?
610010
Hedge funds can be a variety of things.  Simple diversification can be a hedge.  \n\nDow Jones Averages used to be a hedge.  If the Industrials were down, the surely the Transportations or Utilities (a couple of other, previously indispensible pieces) were up.  Similarly, Standard & Poors or the Fortune 500 list are diversifications to hedge against market downturns.  The S&P 500 is often listed by sector, sorted by similar types of businesses.  This way you can identify, say, just banks, or just airlines.  Right now, if you put money just into their banks and none in the airlines, your portfolio would perform better than the average investor.  Right now oil is making profits by the barrel but losing stock value.  Right now, car companies are losing money and they are also declining in value, so mixing and matching gets complicated.  Fully half of the stocks are up and the rest are down at any one given moment.  You may lose some money on some, but won't on all.\n\nThat is the hedging thing.  If I think domestic car sales will go down, I can go short on GM & Ford while going long on Toyota and Honda.  I can buy short term wheat and sell long term corn.  There are a variety of mixes that are the financial equivalent of getting sweet and sour pork at a Chinese restaurant.  It is using the markets to have your foot on the gas and the other on the brake.  It doesn't sound very smart, and sometimes is downright stupid, some hedge funds have lost lots and lots of money.  Our government wants only very well "qualified" people to participate, as in they have loads of money to lose.  Yet, just as some can lose big time (what if both GM AND Honda go down?, what if both wheat AND corn go down?), they can also win in really big ways.\n\nIt doesn't have to be short-sales and derivatives like options and futures contracts, but it can.  It could also simply be that with summer fewer people will buy coffee and more will buy coca cola, so I reposition my speculations/investments according to the opportunities.
75811
A fund that can sell stocks short. (Mutual funds cannot do it)
491432
In most countries when you sell an investment, you have to pay taxes on the profits immediately, even if you sold the investment to reinvest in something else.\n\nTo avoid this inconvenience banks and other investment firms invented the "fund of funds". The manager of this type of fund determines his own strategy of arbitrage and reinvestment within a number of mutual funds. For the buyer of the fund of funds the advantage is that his reinvested money did not leave the fund of funds, and he doesn't have to pay taxes.\n\nThe advantage for the bank is that the fund family used by the manager is often that of the bank, which means that the bank earns twice the manager fee, once on each fund.  \n\nThe details depend on the country and its tax rules.\n\nBeing a fund of funds is one of the investment strategies used by hedge funds as it permits arbitrage between stocks, bonds, commodities according to the model the manager uses\nbut without him being encumbered by the burden of having to choose individual investments.
152027
Hi - I'm a trader...Highest Return?\n\nStocks won't because they require you to put forward the full amount of capital. Hedge Funds - you have little control over what they invest in - and i doubt they can match any professional trader's returns!\n\nYou're left with futures/forex and options. I don't have experience with futures so I can't comment but forex dealers give you a leverage of 100:1. You only need to put in 1% of capital in your trading. What does that mean?? well percentage wise your returns will be phenonemal. You can achieve the same leveraged affect with options as well as this instrument called CFDs.
691621
I believe that GLD is just an ETF.  ETF is an exchange traded fund which is basically something that tracks the actual price by which gold is traded on the commodities market.  The structure for GLD is different but regarding the new silver ETF (SLV)...\n\n"Under the structure, the precious metal is tucked away in a vault while investors buy and sell shares that each represent about 10 ounces of silver. "
1120377
It refers to a closed-end fund. When a fund trades at a price lower than its per-share value, it is said to be trading at a discount to NAV (net asset value). A closed-end fund whose share price is falling in relation to its NAV is said to be trading at a "widening discount."
645837
Check out this site.\n\nhttp://www.hedgefundemployment.com/jobseeker_home.php?PHPSESSID=6f59440367a7d11acee0cc79fbab76ec
144159
Hi - I'm a trader...Highest Return?\n\nStocks won't because they require you to put forward the full amount of capital. Hedge Funds - you have little control over what they invest in - and i doubt they can match any professional trader's returns! \n\nYou're left with futures/forex and options. I don't have experience with futures so I can't comment but forex dealers give you a leverage of 100:1. You only need to put in 1% of capital in your trading. What does that mean?? well percentage wise your returns will be phenonemal. You can achieve the same leveraged affect with options as well as this instrument called CFDs.
575487
Hi\n\nThe reason is simple, One must understand that the very purpose of using derivatives is to manage risk ( apart from speculation and arbitrage) Therefore many funds and large investors buy in to futures as a measure to hedge portfolios than buy options because the number of lots required to make an effective hedge if ur buying options will be huge. Also futures is more easy to trade and to understand than option pricing, having said that the risk and return is very high in futures.\n\nOptions are generally traded by the retail investors. If you would have observed only index options are traded more than stock options again for the reasons stated above.\n\nHope this helps
25506
Hedge funds are regulated differently.  For example, they cannot advertise to the general public.  They have greater flexibility as to the instruments and markets they can participate in.  Therefore you see them often in derivatives, shorting stocks, and in commodities.
487777
There will be hedge funds on all currency exchanges in case there is a profit to be made.\n\nThe big ones are\n-EBS (they started allowing hedge funds on this inter-bank)\n-CME\n-Hotspot\n-Currenex\n-maybe Reuters, but this is a much smaller subset\n\nProbably a few other small ones too.
325356
Here is what I suggest. Go to Yahoo mutual fund screen. And imput the parameters of the type of fund you wish to consider and see what pops up. \n\nHere is the link.\n\nThe second link is one of the screens I ran. It shows funds that are no load, with low initial investment that are ranked at least 4 star by Morningstar and are in the top 30% for one year performance.
82876
An account where the investment is purchased from one company but the securities/bonds, etc. are physically held somewhere else. In the mutual fund world, you would buy shares from a company like Fidelity but the underlying securities/bonds, etc. are physically held by a bank.
708031
Gotham Capital was/is a hedge fund and is not open for just any investor.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Greenblatt    Because this is a private investment fund expenses and returns are not public information.  However ...\n\nMore information on his current stock picks and investing philosophy is available at http://www.gurufocus.com/ListGuru.php?GuruName=Joel+Greenblatt
768763
Institutional investors are any large companies that invest money on behalf of individuals.  The answer already given is a prime example - Mutual fund managers.  Institutional investors could also be any bank, investing funds of many of their customers.  Hope this helps.
781936
It's all about risk.  \n\nAn Asset Manager will manage your money by buying and selling assets (usually shares).  They are heavily regulated and are supposed to be experienced financial professionals who can get a higher rate of return on your savings than you would be able to on your own.  \n\nA Hedge Fund is more lighly regulated and employs all sorts of higher risk methods (selling shares short, derivatives, investing borrowed money) to get a higher rate of return.  They are able to go anywhere and do almost anything.  For years that meant they got a much higher rate of return than Asset Managers and were consequentially very highly paid.  These days they field uis much more crowded and the returns have come right down.  In addition regulators are paying more attention and also giving Asset Managers the fredom to do things like invest in derivatives.
105757
Hedging is the attempt to mitigate the impact of economic risks on an entity's performance. Many businesses will engage in hedging activity to limit economic risk. Hedging activity can be as simple as borrowing in a foreign currency where an entity has a usual revenue stream in that currency. Many economic hedges will not meet the criteria to qualify for the special accounting treatment identified in IFRS as hedge accounting. \n\nHedge accounting means designating a hedging instrument, normally a derivative, as an offset to changes in the fair value or cash flows of a hedged item. Non-derivative financial instruments may be used as hedging instruments in certain limited circumstances . A hedged item can be an asset, liability, firm commitment, or forecasted future transaction that is exposed to a risk of change in value or changes in future cash flows [IAS39.10]. Hedge accounting attempts to match the offsetting effects of the fair value changes in hedged items and hedging instruments, and recognise them in net profit or loss at the same time. \n\nThe normal rules for financial instruments call for all derivatives to be carried at fair value with gains and losses in the income statement  . Hedge accounting allows departures from the normal recognition rules. Accounting rules for hedging are necessary to reflect the economics of hedging relationships in reporting performance. An entity using hedge accounting can impact on the timing of recognition of gains and losses from fair value changes in hedged items and hedging instruments, and avoid the significant volatility that might arise if the gains and losses were recognised in the income statement under normal accounting rules.