• Jan 13, 2019
• finance

How to Interview a Hedge Fund Manager: First Call Tips (Part 1)

You have done your homework. You read the DDQ, you looked at the presentation, you reviewed the monthly letters, and the numbers did not scare you away. Now what?

• Jan 13, 2019
• finance

Shooting Star Hedge Funds - 18 Lessons From Funds That Burned Out

Chapter 4 of The Hedge Fund Book is called “The Shooting Star.” And the title tells you everything. Some hedge funds grow super fast, look amazing for a while, and then crash. Like a shooting star. Bright, quick, gone.

• Jan 13, 2019
• software-engineering

The Wealth of Nations: What Makes a Market 'Good'? (Chapter 9)

The Invisible Hand’s Plumbing

In Chapter 9, Larry Harris steps back from the “how” of trading to look at the “why.” Why should a regular person, who might not even own a single stock, care about whether the New York Stock Exchange has a central limit order book or how fast orders are linked?

• Jan 12, 2019
• finance

Chapter 5: The 7 Steps of a Private Equity Deal

You want to buy a company. Or at least a piece of one. How does that actually work? Chapter 5 of Demaria’s book lays it out in 7 steps. The whole thing takes 3 to 18 months depending on the deal. And really, the entire process boils down to one word: trust. Buyer and seller have to trust each other enough to make a deal happen. Let’s walk through it.

• Jan 12, 2019
• finance

Hedge Fund Data Collection: 13F Filings and Beyond (Part 2)

In Part 1 we looked at what a Due Diligence Questionnaire (DDQ) is and how Travers uses it to collect initial data on a hedge fund. In this second part, we cover the rest of the DDQ, the other materials you should request, how to analyze performance data, and one of the most useful free tools out there: SEC 13F filings.

• Jan 12, 2019
• finance

Hedge Fund Marketing - How Funds Actually Raise Capital

Chapter 3 of “The Hedge Fund Book” by Richard C. Wilson is called “Hedge Fund Marketing Pro.” It opens with a quote that basically says there are three ways to raise capital: have rich friends, land early institutional allocations, or do hard work. That sets the tone for the whole chapter. No shortcuts. Just grind.

• Jan 12, 2019
• software-engineering

The Predators and the Prey: Why People Trade (Chapter 8, Part 2)

The Food Chain of the Market

In the second half of Chapter 8, we meet the players who are actually trying to make a living in the arena. If trading is a zero-sum game, these are the people trying to take your money.

• Jan 11, 2019
• finance

Chapter 4 Part 3: Private Debt, Real Estate and Other Alternative Assets

This is the final piece of Chapter 4. We covered venture capital, growth capital, LBOs and special situations before. Now Demaria walks us through the rest of the private markets universe: private debt, real assets, and a handful of other instruments that sit at the edges of the asset class.

• Jan 11, 2019
• finance

Hedge Fund Data Collection: Where to Start Your Research (Part 1)

So you have narrowed your list of hedge fund candidates. You ran the screens, looked at the charts, compared the numbers. Now what?