WSJ – Hedge funders are in the news. Carl Icahn tweets about his dinner with Apple’s Tim Cook. Dan Loeb tussles with George Clooney. Bill Ackman says Herbalife is a pyramid and shorts the stock; George Soros goes long. If you want to understand the guys who run hedge funds, you first have to realize that they—we—are a little nuts.
The trick to running a hedge fund is to drink from the fire hose of information, take it all in, figure out what everyone else knows and then position your portfolio to benefit when everyone else is inevitably wrong. This is no simple feat. Sleepless nights, second guessing, minds racing, almost a split personality working out both sides of all arguments.
