Product Description

The legends who created the trillion-dollar hedge fund world are brilliant at picking investments, astute at spotting talent--and notorious for secrecy. Now these top managers talk frankly about the challenges they face and how they enter, exit, and size their trades. They also name up-and-coming managers who are shaping the future of hedge funds. Katherine Burton, an acclaimed Bloomberg News reporter, has persuaded these giants of their industry to share their thinking as never before. Investors and market watchers will be intrigued and informed by an unprecendented look inside these highly successful funds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13361 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 206 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Like other books profiling hedge fund managers, this one promises unprecedented candor and a view behind tightly closed doors, but some of the 23 managers profiled gave similar interviews in books such as Market Wizards, The New Investment Superstars and Inside the House of Money, and some have written books of their own. Bloomberg News reporter Burton does break new ground by profiling 13 up-and-coming managers selected by 10 acknowledged leaders and legends. Compared with other authors, she is more interested in the personal and business qualities needed to build a successful asset management business than in pure trading ability. She concentrates on stock pickers rather than others, such as managers who trade in nonequity markets. But the interviews tend to be soft: we learn about the managers' boyish good looks, telephone ring tones, rapper friends and art collections, among other personal details. When conversations turn to trading, the managers usually supply anecdotes of successful trades, often with tension as the market initially moves against them. This is a pleasant and well-written book for readers interested in the people and business of hedge funds, rather than their investment techniques. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Barron's, December 3, 2007
"A readable, relevant book, with lessons a new generation of hedge-fund managers... would do well to take to heart."

About the Author
Katherine Burton has been a reporter at Bloomberg News since 1993, covering hedge funds and investment management. Before joining Bloomberg, she wrote for the International Herald Tribune and U.S. News & World Report. She has an MBA from New York University and and is a winner of the 2001 Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for breaking news.

Customer Reviews

The Quarry Escaped
I read this book carefully in its entirety, hoping for a contemporary analog to the classic Wizards trilogy so ably ushered into print by Jack Schwager (If you're interested in trading and haven't read these classics ~ even the weaker volume 3 ~ buy them now).

Perhaps having been influenced by the quality of Schwager's opus, I set the bar too high and became an easy mark for disappointment. I found myself grimacing again and again, and even saying to myself aloud, "Why didn't she ask the next, obvious question?"

Absent the probing questions that might have been asked of this glittering lineup of stellar performers, what we're left with is a series of personality profiles. The author's tepid prose skips like a stone across the placid surface of deep water. Untroubled by probing questions, the strategic and tactical aspects of hedge fund management remain undisturbed.

What we do read quite a bit of is descriptions of lobby and reception area decor found in the plush buildings where hedge fund operators spend much of their time. These breathless descriptions of decoration function as a trailing indicator showing that the author spent a lot of her time in waiting rooms rather than meeting with the subjects of her book.

It's valid to point out that the author isn't a markets practitioner but a markets journalist. Perhaps she felt that digging deeply would ruffle feathers of those she might wish to approach at another time as sources or for interviews? In any event, the resulting personality profiles wouldn't pass muster to appear in Bloomberg Magazine. The author is a Bloomberg reporter.

My wife purchased our copy of this book at one of the author's promotional appearances closely following publication. It was a professional forum, the room full of analysts and other practitioners. She commented that the author's replies to probing questions seeking elaboration were "uncertain, unsteady, and showed a lack of insight."

Go long Schwager's trilogy, between the covers of which you'll find a billion dollars worth of wisdom. Short this book by leaving it on the shelf.

Time to trim the hedge
Katherine Burton is a fine writer, who, for some reason not specified in this book, chose to apply her talents to a work that the back cover describes as a "page-turner...written in a wonderfully engaging style."

Translation: if you want to read upbeat profiles of men who all sound vaguely similar and if you don't care a whit about understanding how these high stakes games played in unregulated markets affect the global financial system, if you have never wondered why these men earned the big bucks or questioned whether they were worth those paychecks, then you will enjoy this book.

Under Burton's touch, these men are all rendered as kindly and wise souls, each with a pithy piece or two of advice to impart. They value the people who work for them, and they care about their clients. They are all brilliant and beneficent. In short, this is 200 pages of feel-good bedtime reading that will lull you into slumber with a smile on your face.

Hard-hitting investigative reporting this is not. Burton only lightly touches on the risks, and ignores the reckoning. Want to learn how Long-Term Capital Management, notorious hedge fund disaster of a decade ago, almost triggered financial armageddon? You're wasting your time, as Burton devotes only a few sentences, in passing, to LTCM. Nor does she explore the use of hedge funds as a tax shelter, or the fact that many hedge funds are incorporated outside the U.S., or that they engage in somewhat questionable investment strategies. And if she even mentions the fact that all her subjects are male, that you have to scour the book to find any women's names at all, I missed it.

This is a great book for developing a basic vocabulary of people and terms that you can drop when you're attending parties of other upwardly mobile fortune seekers. But if you want to find out what it's all about, there are many better sources.

Very Interesting
This is a reprint of the review I wrote for my book review website Letters On Pages (www.lettersonpages.com
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I am pretty interested in financial stuff, so when I got the opportunity to review Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning by Katherine Burton, I jumped at the chance. I am glad I did, because the book is entirely fascinating! The book is basically a collection of mini biographies of the best hedge fund managers around. They give their keys to success, how they've avoided disaster (for the most part), and their favorite managers. But, maybe we should start at the beginning.

A hedge fund, according to Wikipedia, is a private investment fund that charges a performance fee and management fee. In order to invest with a hedge fund you must qualify. In order to qualify you must have A LOT of money. Hedge funds manage billions of dollars, so they don't mess around with small time investors. As the book shows, there are a lot of different styles of hedge funds based on the level of risk/reward you (assuming you have millions and millions already!) are looking for.

Hedge Hunters is really interesting because it gets inside the office and gets personal with the managers. Why are these money managers so successful? As I said before, there are a wide variety of styles that these managers employ. Some are very conservative and don't promise huge returns. Some are far more willing to take risks in order to obtain massive returns. One consistentcy between all of the managers is that they aim to make money no matter what direction the market is going. Up or down...if they aren't profiting then they aren't happy.

Another consistency between all of these managers is how much time they take researching the companies and management. There are a lot of money managers out there on Wall Street and around the country/world...but it seems to me that the best ones are the ones who take their time and make the extra effort to really analyze a company. That is where they find the under and over valued companies to bet on. And that is where they make their money.

Burton does a fantastic job of keeping the book interesting and not just listing the record of the managers. Not all of their advice is meaningful to the normal investors of the world, but the basic premise of research and patience rings out throughout the book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in investing and personal finance. You will learn something if you read this book!