Definition of hedge fund
: an investing group usually in the form of a limited partnership that employs speculative techniques in the hope of obtaining large capital gains
- Trending Now: More Trending:
- exculpatory ideologue socialism uphold due process
- ALL
What's Trending Now
More Trending Words
Recent Examples of hedge fund from the Web
-
One investor who got hit was American billionaire John Paulson, whose hedge fund lost about US $500 million on the bet.
-
By Sheelah Kolhatkar This is a book about Steven A. Cohen, the theatrically unjailable billionaire whose $15 billion hedge fund pleaded guilty to sweeping securities fraud.
-
Jonathan Streeter of Dechert, a law firm, says hedge funds are waking up to the risks of potentially suspect data.
-
Crypto hedge funds have proliferated over the last 18 months, with an estimated 100 new ones launching in 2017.
-
Vintage is the hedge fund run by Brian Kahn and currently owns the Buddy’s Home Furnishings and has a share of the Papa Murphy’s pizza and Vitamin Shoppe.
-
When Elliott announced its bid for athenahealth last month, the hedge fund noted that its offer to buy the company last year had been rebuffed.
-
Sears is considering selling its popular Kenmore appliance brand and other divisions after the hedge fund run by CEO Edward Lampert expressed interest in buying them and breaking up the company.
-
Amid the company's struggles, the hedge fund D.E. Shaw, a longtime Lowe's shareholder, last fall began building up an activist stake in the company.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'hedge fund.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use of hedge fund
1966
Financial Definition of HEDGE FUND
hedge fund
What It Is
A hedge fund is an investment structure designed to allow management of a private, unregistered portfolio of assets.
How It Works
The original concept of a hedge fund was to offer plays against the market using short selling, futures, and derivatives. Today, hedge funds follow any number of strategies and cannot be considered a homogenous asset class.
Hedge funds (as an asset class) use various strategies, including leverage, hedging, and macroeconomic bets on commodities, currencies, and interest rates. The common denominator of hedge funds is not their investment strategy but their search for absolute returns (as opposed to relative returns). Absolute return strategies focus on generating a positive return on investment (ROI) regardless of the direction of the financial markets.
Hedge fund managers seek freedom to achieve high absolute returns and wish to be rewarded for their performance. The compensation arrangement for the manager typically specifies considerable profit participation. The specific legal organization of hedge funds and the considerable fee structure expected by fund managers are probably the only uniform characteristics of hedge funds.
Only accredited investors are eligible to invest in hedge funds. The term accredited investor includes wealthy individuals and organizations like corporations, endowments, or pension funds. Accredited investors invest in hedge funds because they are looking for investments with negative correlation to the broad market.
Why It Matters
Because they operate outside the realm of the public markets and are lightly regulated, hedge funds have been declared "off limits" to most individual investors. Some say the lack of oversight paired with the high-risk, high-return strategies employed by most hedge funds have resulted in some of the world's most catastrophic financial events, including the failure of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 and the collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds in 2007.
That being said, all investors, regardless of experience and sophistication, need to perform extensive due diligence before investing in any hedge fund. Before investing in a hedge fund, an investor needs to consider the correlation of the fund strategy to the rest of the investor’s portfolio, the reputation and success rate of the fund manager, the use of leverage, as well as the fee schedule.
Source: Investing Answers
HEDGE FUND Defined for English Language Learners
hedge fund
Definition of hedge fund for English Language Learners
-
finance : a group of investors who take financial risks together in order to try to earn a lot of money
Law Dictionary
Learn More about hedge fund
-
See words that rhyme with hedge fund Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about hedge fund
Seen and Heard
What made you want to look up hedge fund? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).
