May 9, 2013

The Simple Reason Hedge Fund Billionaires Are Mad at Ben Bernanke

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Matt Yglesias informs me today that there is something called the Sohn Investment Conference, which, according to Reuters, “gets big name hedge fund managers to share their ‘best ideas’ with other wealthy investors.” The hedge fundies, it turns out, are really unhappy with Ben Bernanke’s monetary policy, and Matt provides a fairly philosophical explanation for why this is. I suppose he might be right, but I’m going to take a wild guess that the real reason is much simpler, summarized here by Reuters:

The Fed’s easy money policy has helped boost riskier assets such as equities, with the S&P 500 up 14 percent this year. Both the S&P and Dow Jones Industrials have set a string of all-time highs.

In contrast, the average hedge fund is up only 4.4 percent.

So there you have it. In Ben Bernanke’s America, hedge funds aren’t doing so well. And guess what? Billionaire hedge fund managers aren’t very happy about that. It’s not complicated at all.

By the way, I love the scare quotes the Reuters reporters put around “best ideas.” I’m guessing they’re a little skeptical that these billionaires are truly sharing anything remotely approaching their best ideas. I would be too.

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