Monday, January 28, 2008

Free Hedge Fund Blog Book. AND: Hedge funds: The new global super powers

Richard Wilson is offering an e-book of some of his articles at the Hedge Fund blog.
Here's the e-book page.
Here's the Hedge Fund blog main page.

From The Telegraph comes the super powers story.
Robert Peston is the BBC's business editor and was the first to break the story of what FT Alphaville called the "All Chauffeur Alert" on the Bank of England's 9:30 p.m. emergency Northern Rock meeting last September.

In our second extract from his provocative new book, Who Runs Britain? Robert Peston asks whether the new Masters of the Universe should be using their talents to save the world rather than making themselves even richer

To find where true power and super-riches lie in modern Britain, go to the thickets of the hedge funds. In January 2007, $261bn of hedge fund money was managed from London by 72 firms that each control more than $1bn. That makes London the second largest hedge fund centre after New York.

Although they are usually described as City businesses, most of them are not based in the Square Mile, London's financial district, or in the towers of Canary Wharf. Their stupendously rewarded managers live and work in Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Covent Garden and Chelsea. The journey from overpriced home to overpriced office to overpriced restaurant is just a short walk.

Habitually tieless and dressed-down casual, they sit at computer screens and construct complicated trading strategies. Many of them stay at their desks without pause or interruption from 7am to 9pm on weekdays and maintain electronic contact with markets at all other times. They are not to be pitied. Some of them are worth hundreds of millions of pounds....MORE