3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book on a topic we all ought to know more about!, 4 April 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Hedge Funds: Courtesans of Capitalism: The Courtesans of Capitalism (Hardcover)
Anyone who is interested in the financial markets will have heard of hedge funds but few will know what hedge funds are, what they do and (equally important) how they have influenced stock, bond and foreign exchange markets in recent years.
This book is eminently readable and will answer these questions. Mr Temple defines the different types of hedge fund and then introduces us to many of the strange characters who manage them - the "Masters of the Universe". He describes what happens when the apparently low risk techniques adopted by the hedge fund managers go wrong. The LTCM debacle is perhaps the most recent example. He explains the fact that the highly indebted hedge funds pose a risk to the financial systems and institutions which we tend to take for granted.
While Mr Temple clearly is no fan of the hedge fund as often constituted now he explains how today's funds are a far cry from the original conservative (and sensible) idea implemented by one Alfred Jones in the 1940s. Jones made a great deal of money for himself and his investors.
I feel that Mr Temple's advice to today's investor would be not to give one's money to a "Master of the Universe" however persuasive the case may appear to be and not to be seduced by the term "hedge fund". Rather one had better find out what the manager actually does and what risks he/she is actually running. The end result will probably be that one invests with a more modest outfit with sensible, achievable, goals and a genuinely low risk approach.
This book will appeal to those interested in the financial markets and the risks inherent in them. Perhaps more than anything else it is a book about risk. Here the message is uncomfortable since it is apparent to the reader that many small low risk investments can be multiplied into a highly risky portfolio when debt ("leverage") is used to spice up the return. When this happens the Courtesans rapidly lose their attraction!
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Complete waste of time..., 4 April 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Hedge Funds: Courtesans of Capitalism: The Courtesans of Capitalism (Hardcover)
Man, this was a complete waste of my time. This book was highlighted in the Sunday Times and I thought that it'd be a good read, boy was I mistaken? The author seems overly excited by his ability to link courtesans to hedge fund traders and never lets you forget it. The book reads more like a collection of different articles from various sources all joined together. There was nothing new in this book. Not one thing, even worse was the fact that it was not entetaining. So, what we have here is a book that is neither informative nor entertaining, a complete disappointment.
Though more parochial, personally I think that Nick Dunbar's or R. Lowenstein's books give a much better insight into the world of hedge funds and the personalities that inhabit them.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Tell you what ..., 22 May 2008
This review is from: Hedge Funds: Courtesans of Capitalism: The Courtesans of Capitalism (Hardcover)
... you'll get a whole lot more real insight from Barton Biggs' 'Hedgehogging' ... a truly riveting look inside funds from someone who's been at the coalface from the start.
This is dreary by comparison.
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