Number of hedge funds launched globally 2015-2018
Hedge funds
A hedge fund is an investment vehicle that invests in a wide range of assets in order to generate a higher return for a given level of risk than that which is expected of normal investments. Regardless of what the market does, hedge funds are managed in order to generate a consistent level of return. Obviously, the higher the risk, the higher the return, but due to their design as collected limited investment partnerships, hedge funds aim to achieve a positive return on investment.
Not dissimilar to the English idiomatic phrase ‘to hedge your bets’, hedge funds aim to reduce the probability of incurring a loss by ‘hedging’ the likelihood of incurring a loss by counterbalancing this loss in some way. This is the task of hedge fund managers, who find ways to reduce the risk without eating into the investment income. It is not untypical that a hedge fund manager would invest their own capital into the fund that they manage; this vested financial interest aims to align their interests with those of their fellow investors.
Regulation of hedge funds is lax to non-existent, and because they are not available for sale to the public or to retail investors, the funds and their managers have historically been exempt from the rules that govern other types of funds, their strategic approach to investments and the techniques that are employed in their implementation.