Hedge Funds

"This book is about hedge funds, their influence on the global financial markets and how they affect us all. Hedge funds have come a long way since Alfred Winslow Jones first used them in the 1950s and '60s to reduce risk. Hedge funds today can wield immense power capable of disrupting the financial markets." "More alarming still is the hedge fund in your bank, epitomised by so-called 'proprietary trading': Banks trade with, lend to, and mimic hedge funds in their own trading - generating fat bonuses for their managers. Customers rarely know, let alone are consulted about it. As with many other 'enthusiasms' to which banks have been prone, it may end in tears." "The book's controversial conclusion is that it is banks' exposure to hedge funds and their sometimes inept proprietary trading that needs to be regulated more closely. It is in the urgent interests of the global banking system as a whole, and concerns all of us."--Jacket.