Best Hedge Fund Book

The Hedge Fund Book: A Monkey's Review (Originally Posted: 05/03/2012)

“You know what I want? One day, to be on the other end of that phone.” “You got it Buddy—where the real cheesecake is.” – Wall Street

The movie glosses over this entirely, but if you want to be the hedge fund manager or private equity big shot on the other end of the phone, you’ve got to understand what it takes to run a hedge fund on a day-to-day basis—and not just from the manager’s chair.
That’s right, monkeys. It ain’t just about picking a trading strategy, beating the S&P500 and making plans for what yacht you’re going to buy with your first performance fee.

There were some pretty good, well-thought-out responses to “What kind of hedge fund would you start?” last week, but how many of you know how much it costs to set up an independent board of directors for your fund? How long should your Powerpoint presentation be when pitching to new clients and raising capital? What resources are available for connecting start-up hedge funds with potential seed money? Which criteria should be used when choosing service providers? What activities do you want to outsource, and which operations do you want to keep in house? How do you prepare for an audit, both internally and externally?

“The Hedge Fund Book” takes all that nitty-gritty, operational, back-office stuff that a lot of us would prefer not to think about from our fantasy top-floor office and condenses a lot of it into less than 200 pages. A lot of monkeys on this site have their sights set on managing their own hedge fund, which is a highly-sought after job for a reason. But as we all know, anything entrepreneurial is a big risk, and running a hedge fund is in some ways even more challenging than running a small business. Even if running your own shop isn’t your goal, it’s still worth a read to gain a more granular look at the industry behind all different types of funds.

It’s also pretty easy to study, given chapter-by-chapter summaries, questions, and links to other resources and video content for continuing education.

If you had to summarize the most important lesson in “The Hedge Fund Book,” you can’t go wrong with the introductory quote to Chapter 2:

“There are three ways to raise capital: having more high net worth friends than the next fund manager, landing early institutional allocations, or hard work. Get to work.”

Read up, monkeys!

Monkey’s Review 1: Barbarians At the Gate Monkey’s Review 2: The Financier Monkey’s Review 3: Decision Points Monkey’s Review 4: Debunkery Monkey’s Review 5: When Genius Failed Monkey’s Review 6: Monkey Business Monkey’s Review 7: Death Of The Banker Monkey’s Review 8: A Journey Monkey’s Review 9: Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker Monkey’s Review 10: The Quants Monkey’s Review 11: All About Hedge Funds Monkey’s Review 12: The Unlikely Disciple Monkey’s Review 13: Adventure Capitalist Monkey’s Review 14: The Hedge Fund Book Monkey’s Review 15: Investing In Hedge Fund of Funds Monkey’s Review 16: Hilarity Ensues Monkey’s Review 17: The Prince Monkey’s Review 18: Markets Never Forget (But People Do) Monkey’s Review 19: The Money Culture