Categories: Alternatives

Things are looking up for Cerberus Capital Management

Posted by: Emily Thornton on October 15

Things are looking up for Cerberus: After being dogged by investor jitters and false rumors that its hedge fund was about to default, Cerberus Capital Management is taking several of...

Private Equity Triage: If you don't like what a private equity firm did to your company, buy it back.

Posted by: Emily Thornton on February 12

Here's one of the more radical ways to deal with a private equity deal that has gone bad: The sons of the founder of defunct retailer Mervyns, Mervin Morris, have...

Age-based Saving with Gold and Real Estate

Posted by: Lauren Young on December 22

Today's installment of age-based investment tips for 2009 focuses on gold as well as real estate. 25 to 35: The key for investing for this age group is thinking long...

A Bear executive's Wall Street comeback

Posted by: Ben Steverman on June 30

By Matthew Goldstein Former Bear Stearns executive Richard Marin certainly knows a thing or two about hedge fund failures. Marin was the chairman of Bear Stearns Asset Management when the...

Bear Stearns Fund Managers Indicted

Posted by: Ben Steverman on June 19

By Matthew Goldstein and David Henry Former Bear Stearns executives Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were indicted on federal securities fraud charges on June 18, almost a year after the...

Sometimes the cat once burned sits on the stove again

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on October 09

In case you have somehow missed it, there's a must-read profile of twice dusted hedge fund manager Victor Niederhoffer in this week's New Yorker magazine. Niederhoffer, who previously lost it...

A Transportation Safety Board for hedge funds?

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on September 26

For years and years, one of the most reliable ways for hedge fund managers to make money was to play in the convertible securities market. Converts are similar to a...

Half the story of Sowood fund's failure

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on July 31

There are lots of fancy streets in the posh Boston suburb of Wellesley (average home price: $1.4 million), some that are fancy-shmancy and even some off-the-charts uber-fancy cul-de-sacs where...

The Private Equity/Hedge Fund Fortress

Posted by: Lauren Young on June 05

Although Robert Gendelman, manager of Legg Mason Partners Capital and Income Fund, once worked at a hedge fund, he seems a bit skeptical about the alternative asset universe these days....

SEC's backward call against hedge funds

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on June 05

Can the Securities and Exchange Commission save us from ourselves and do we want to be saved? Sadly when it comes to hedge funds, the answer on both counts is...

You want publicly traded hedge funds? We got 'em

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on May 24

After all the hubbub over hedge fund manager Fortress Investment Group (Symbol: FIG) and private equity manager Blackstone Group LP (Symbol to be: BX) going public, it seems we've all...

Hedge fund returns look unimpressive in new study

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 19

University of Texas finance professor John Griffin and Jin Xu (who works at Roger Ibbotson's Zebra Capital Management) have some bad news for proponents of hedge funds in their new...

Diversification didn't do much for you today

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on February 27

Apropos of my previous entry -- and perhaps equally amazing for fans of diversification -- only 9 out of 289 exchange-traded funds tracked at Yahoo Finance had positive returns today,...

Where to Invest in 2007: The Cash Machine Version

Posted by: Lauren Young on December 28

As part of the Where to Invest in 2007 cover story, I asked a team of financial advisers to review the portfolios of real-life investors and make investment suggestions for...

Little Chelsea is all grown up and working for 2 and 20

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on November 06

Word from the Baltimore Sun that Chelsea Clinton has jumped from the world of management consulting to a hedge fund. The former first daughter will hang her hat at Avenue...

Diversification tips for the little people

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on October 16

There are several million potential readers for every article in the print version of Businessweek (if our subscriber surveys are to be believed) and hundreds of millions more when those...

Hedge fund managers are adding a lot of performance

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on August 30

CXO Advisory Group has posted a write-up of a fascinating paper by MIT’s resident financial genius, Professor Andrew Lo, and grad student Jasmina Hasanhodzic. The paper examines the performance of...

Following a mortgage guru to the dark side

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on July 28

Warren Buffett says he doesn't make investments if he can't understand the underlying business, but most of the rest of us aren't as smart as the Oracle of Omaha. What...

Here comes the silver crash?

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on April 28

Ok, you can stop writing in asking when, when, when will Barclays new silver ETF start trading. People, let the rejoicing begin. Trading under the symbol SLV begins today. Silver...

Agreeing with Big Bill on commodities

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on April 25

It’s fun to be on the same page with a super smarty like Bill Miller, even if we are in the minority. In his April commentary distributed today, the man...

Hedging your winter oil bills

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on April 10

One of the new oil ETFs (Symbol: USO) started trading today, allowing investors to buy shares of a barrel of oil without the complications and risks of using the futures...

Hi ho Silver, away - new ETF very near

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on March 22

All that glitters is not gold, at least in the ETF world this week. The Securities and Exchange Commission has finally approved (PDF file) the American Stock Exchange's plan to...

Is oil partying like it's 1999?

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on February 23

For all the worrywarts and, after my last entry, to appease Bill Miller who doesn't own energy stocks in the Legg Mason Value Trust (LMVTX), I'm posting this Birinyi...

A late New Year's resolution - Go alternative

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on January 17

This is my first blog post for Business Week and right at the top I’ll tell you that I encourage your feedback, either at the bottom of my entry or...