Customer Reviews

All About Hedge Funds : The Easy Way to Get Started

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book presents a fantastic overview of the hedge fund industry. The intended target audience is hedge fund investors, which is reinforced by the author's credentials as an executive in a "Fund of Funds". In addition, the book would be very useful as an interview to financial markets, useful for business students interested in careers in trading or hedge funds.

The book starts with a broad overview of market theory, covering efficient markets, diversification theory and strengths and weaknesses of the "Random Walk" theory. The book then moves to an overview of the various investment tools available to hedge funds, such as going long and short on stock prices and volatility. (If you'd like to know in plain english what being "long volatility" means, this is a good book for you!) The book then covers legal, financial and operational details of running a fund. Lastly, it covers the various types of funds, such as equity funds and event driven funds. The scope of the material covers financial institutions such as investment banks and brokers that support hedge funds.

In summary, this was a very informative introductory text on both hedge funds and markets. It will be very useful to both new investors in hedge funds, as well as students of financial markets. The math is well explained, and there are only a few tough technical sections.

Enjoy!

This book delivered what I was looking for and more. I needed an introduction to hedge funds and the industry and the book does an excellent job of providing this information in complete and concise detail. In addition, the book also gives a good overview of portfolio theory and how it relates to actual practice. There is also a section that describes the prevalent hedge fund strategies with historical performances. I highly recommend this book to those interested in starting their own fund or wishing to work in the industry.

Not just for people looking for a hedge fund! This book is a great introduction to modern portfolio theory and gives excellent descriptions of most key concepts. If there's a 2nd edition, I hope he will include more clarity and discussion of key terms like Sharpe Ratio (there are 2 definitions in customary usage, it's an important and misunderstood number, and there is no occurrence of "sharpe ratio" in the index), Alpha, Beta, R-squared, etc. Nonetheless, this book is extremely helpful and highly recommended.

Page 181 of this 309-page book starts with: "We have spent a lot of time looking at investment issues related to hedge funds: investment objectives, strategies, techniques, and so forth. The next few chapters take a brief look at some of the business and operational issues that arise in the hedge fund world." Finally! Well, page 205 hurries back to "The Menu of Hedge Fund Strategies" about longs and shorts, stocks and bonds and indexes and volatility. Why a publisher would cheat his readers with a title like "All about Hedge Funds" for what is just some investor's handbook is beyond me. Imagine considering serious participation in such fund and the term "Private Placement Memorandum" isn't even mentioned once in this book. Probably the author never heard of it: he intended to write about investing and did, but, discouraged by the crowded market in these books, shuffled in 23 pages about hedge funds so he could rename his book. I fell into the trap, make sure you don't.

This book is great!

I'm a Wall Street professional, but wanted to understand more about the hedge fund business. My initial concern was that this book was going to be too basic, but it was not. It provided excellent insights into the function of hedge funds in today's financial world, various types of investment strategies, the tools available to hedge funds and even went into regulatory and tax issues. It answered all the questions I had about hedge funds (and was afraid to ask). Yet while it was not too simplistic for someone already in the financial services world, it was also not too complicated for a layperson. This book will remain a valuable resource for me in the future.

This is an excellent resource for learning all about Hedge Funds and how they work. This book delves deep enough into the various aspects of Hedge Funds to be very instructive but not too analytical. Not a book for dummies and not a PhD in Finance reference, a great resource right in the middle. This book is perfect for those who are looking for a relatively in depth knowledge of Hedge Funds without boring themselves with too many analytical and overly academic concepts and theories.

the hedge fund industry is grossly misunderstood by many.

The media villifies it and portrays managers as nefariously corrupt, for-the-rich-only servants.

some of that is true, but most of it is not.

this book takes a healthy and objective look at what, how, and why hedge funds operate.

It's not perfect, but it's as close as you'll get if you're looking for a ton of wealth in a 48 hour reading period.

By the way, this is the main book they use at YALE for their hedge fund MBA class.

Robert Jaeger has written one of the clearest presentations of the hedge fund industry I have ever come across, and it is a must-read for anyone thinking about entering or investing in the hedge fund world. The title (obviously chosen by the editors, who have a whole series of books titled "All about [blank], the easy way to get started") makes the book sound like it is written for dummies; rest assured, it is not. The author assumes that the reader is intelligent, but not necessarily familiar with what makes the hedge fund world different from other types of investment management. Jaeger provides a description of the styles of hedge fund management (relative value, event driven, directional, etc.), the tools that hedge fund managers frequently use (shorting, options, futures, etc.), and the associated risks with the tools, styles, and personality fits with investment strategies (e.g. winning big vs. winning often).

The early chapters of the book also have one of the best descriptions I've encountered of how hedge funds fit into the world of investment banking, prime brokers, institutional investors, etc., linking together the parts of the industry to show how they function together. I have talked to many industry actors who could benefit from getting this "bigger picture" that Jaeger provides. If you are a potential hedge fund investor, looking to work in the field, or thinking of managing funds of hedge funds, the clarity this book offers will allow you to go deeper, faster, and more confidently into this fascinating world.

I volunteered to teach some of my retirement plan consultant colleagues about "alternative investments" as part of our ongoing industry education. "All About Hedge Funds" made it easy. The author understands that this topic can be complex, so he prepares the reader for what's next. If you don't care to focus on a particular subject you may rely on his well-crafted summaries and practical examples. But my most pleasant surprise came when Jaeger explained short selling and options. For years, I have relied on various cheat sheets to sort out buying and selling puts and calls. Now, for the first time, I grasp these investments well enough to teach others. This book is a great resource.

Lately, I have been having conversations with people who are engaged in the hedge fund business. For a while, I didn't know what they were talking about and that was probably because my knowledge of how financial markets work was limited.


I bought this book from a regular bookstore because I thought it would help me make sense of what hedge fund managers, hedge fund marketers and partners in hedge funds were talking about.

I learned that what they were talking about was basic market knowledge. Hedge funds are the pinnacle of information sourcing and trading. It's not that there is something magical about them. Hedge funds are simply the conglomeration of the most sophisticated and innovative trading techniques that can be brought to action in capital markets.

This book doesn't tell you how to run your own hedge fund, but it totally helps you understand the context in which hedge funds operate, and therefore, what makes a hedge fund a lucrative and necessary tool of the market.