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Hedge Funds
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals. Hedge funds are considered alternative investments. Their ability to use leverage and more complex investment techniques distinguishes them from regulated investment funds available to the retail market, commonly known as mutual funds and ETFs. They are also considered distinct from private equity funds and other similar closed-end funds as hedge funds generally invest in relatively liquid assets and are usually open-ended. This means they typically allow investors to invest and withdraw capital periodically based on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pooling (resource Management)
In resource management, pooling is the grouping together of resources (assets, equipment, personnel, effort, etc.) for the purposes of maximizing advantage or minimizing risk to the users. The term is used in finance, computing and equipment management. Finance Pooling is the grouping together of assets, and related strategies for minimizing risk. For example: * Asset-backed securities (ABS) is a security whose income payments are backed by a specified pool of underlying assets. *Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security whereas the underlying assets are mortgages. Debt instruments with similar characteristics can be pooled into a new security, for example: *Collateralized debt obligations (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). * Collateralized mortgage obligations (CMO) is a type of complex debt security that repackages and directs the payments of principal and interest from a collateral pool to different types and maturities of sec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed-end Fund
A closed-end fund (CEF), also known as a closed-end mutual fund, is an investment vehicle fund that raises capital by issuing a fixed number of shares at its inception, and then invests that capital in financial assets such as stocks and bonds. After inception it is closed to new capital, although fund managers sometimes employ leverage. Investors can buy and sell the existing shares in secondary markets. CEFs are the oldest form of pooled investment still used in the United States, dating to the 1800s. In the United States, closed-end funds sold publicly must be registered under both the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. U.S.-based closed-end funds are referred to under the law as ''closed-end companies'' and form one of three SEC-recognized types of investment companies along with mutual funds and unit investment trusts. Like their better-known open-ended cousins, closed-end funds are usually sponsored by a fund management company. The fund's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Investment Vehicle
An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to: * hire professional investment managers, who may offer better returns and more adequate risk management; * benefit from economies of scale, i.e., lower transaction costs; * increase the asset diversification to reduce some unsystematic risk. It remains unclear whether professional active investment managers can reliably enhance risk adjusted returns by an amount that exceeds fees and expenses of investment management. Terminology varies with country but investment funds are often referred to as investment pools, collective investment vehicles, collective investment schemes, managed funds, or simply funds. The regulatory term is undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities, or short collective inves ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bull Market
A market trend is a perceived tendency of the financial markets to move in a particular direction over time. Analysts classify these trends as ''secular'' for long time-frames, ''primary'' for medium time-frames, and ''secondary'' for short time-frames. Traders attempt to identify market trends using technical analysis, a framework which characterizes market trends as predictable price tendencies within the market when price reaches support and resistance levels, varying over time. A future market trend can only be determined in hindsight, since at any time prices in the future are not known. This fact makes market timing inherently a game of educated guessing rather than a certainty. Past trends are identified by drawing lines, known as trendlines, that connect price action making higher highs and higher lows for an uptrend, or lower lows and lower highs for a downtrend. Market terminology The terms "bull market" and "bear market" describe upward and downward market tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shorting
In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common long position, where the investor will profit if the market value of the asset rises. An investor that sells an asset short is, as to that asset, a short seller. There are a number of ways of achieving a short position. The most basic is physical selling short or short-selling, by which the short seller borrows an asset (often a security such as a share of stock or a bond) and sells it. The short seller must later buy the same amount of the asset to return it to the lender. If the market price of the asset has fallen in the meantime, the short seller will have made a profit equal to the difference in price. Conversely, if the price has risen then the short seller will bear a loss. The short seller usually must pay a borrowing fee to borrow the asset (charged at a particular rate over time, similar to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asset Management
Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of all value for which a group or entity is responsible. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as complex process or manufacturing plants, infrastructure, buildings or equipment) and to intangible assets (such as intellectual property, goodwill or financial assets). Asset management is a systematic process of developing, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets in the most cost-effective manner (including all costs, risks, and performance attributes). Theory of asset management primarily deals with the periodic matter of improving, maintaining or in other circumstances assuring the economic and capital value of an asset over time. The term is commonly used in engineering, the business world, and public infrastructure sectors to ensure a coordinated approach to the optimization of costs, risks, service/performance, and sustainability. The term has traditionally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Performance Fee
A performance fee is a fee that a client account or an investment fund may be charged by the investment manager that manages its assets in addition to its management fee. A performance fee may be calculated many ways. With respect to a separate account, it is often based on the change in net realized and unrealized gains, although in some cases, it can be based on other measures, such as net income generated. While not very common, some fund managers have attempted to link the performance fee to both upward and downward movement in a fund's gains, such as the ''shock absorber fee'', where the fund manager gets penalised (before the investor) for adverse movement in the fund value. With respect to hedge funds and other investment funds, it is generally calculated by reference to the increase in the clientfund's net asset value (or " NAV"), which represents the value of the fund's investments. Performance fees are widely used by the investment managers of hedge funds, which typic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Absolute Return
The absolute return or simply return is a measure of the gain or loss on an investment portfolio expressed as a percentage of invested capital. The adjective "absolute" is used to stress the distinction with the relative return measures (often used by long-only stock funds) that are based on comparison to a benchmark. The hedge fund business is defined by absolute returns. Unlike traditional asset managers, who try to track and outperform a benchmark (a reference index such as the Dow Jones and S&P 500), hedge fund managers employ different strategies in order to produce a positive return regardless of the direction and the fluctuations of capital markets. This is one reason why hedge funds are referred to as alternative investment vehicles (see hedge funds for more details). Absolute return managers tend to be characterised by their use of short selling, leverage and high turnover in their portfolios. Benchmark Although absolute return funds are sometimes considered not to ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Return On Investment
Return on investment (ROI) or return on costs (ROC) is the ratio between net income (over a period) and investment (costs resulting from an investment of some resources at a point in time). A high ROI means the investment's gains compare favorably to its cost. As a performance measure, ROI is used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiencies of several different investments.Return On Investment – ROI , Investopedia as accessed 8 January 2013 In economic terms, it is one way of relating profits to capital invested. Purpose In business, ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Instrument
Financial instruments are monetary contracts between parties. They can be created, traded, modified and settled. They can be cash (currency), evidence of an ownership, interest in an entity or a contractual right to receive or deliver in the form of currency (forex); debt ( bonds, loans); equity ( shares); or derivatives ( options, futures, forwards). International Accounting Standards IAS 32 and 39 define a financial instrument as "any contract that gives rise to a financial asset of one entity and a financial liability or equity instrument of another entity". Financial instruments may be categorized by " asset class" depending on whether they are foreign exchange-based (reflecting foreign exchange instruments and transactions), equity-based (reflecting ownership of the issuing entity) or debt-based (reflecting a loan the investor has made to the issuing entity). If the instrument is debt it can be further categorized into short-term (less than one year) or long-term. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008 Financial Crisis
The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners and financial institutions that led to the 2000s United States housing bubble, exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of Derivative (finance), derivatives linked to those MBS, collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is a private American corporation that acts as a self-regulatory organization (SRO) that regulates member brokerage firms and exchange markets. FINRA is the successor to the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD) as well as to the member regulation, enforcement, and arbitration operations of the New York Stock Exchange. The U.S. government agency that acts as the ultimate regulator of the U.S. securities industry, including FINRA, is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Overview The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States. FINRA's mission is to protect investors by making sure the United States securities industry operates fairly and honestly. As of October 2023, FINRA oversaw 3,394 brokerage firms, 149,887 branch offices and approximately 612,457 registered securities representatives. FINRA ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
