CHAPTER 3

Major Alternative Strategies

Science you don’t know looks like magic.

       —CHRISTOPHER MOORE

“Hedge funds” are a mystery. The mere phrase “private equity” helped cost Mitt Romney the presidency. “Real assets” do sound much better than fake ones, but, really, is that so special? And “managed futures” sound downright Orwellian.

Time for a little translation. After all, before deciding whether to buy into a strategy, we have to understand how it works. In the next chapter, we’ll explain the many ways in which you can now invest in the various branches of alternatives. But for the moment, the more pressing questions are simply: what are the underlying ideas, and how do they make money?

Hedge Fund Strategies

As you know, the first hedge ...

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