Michael Steinhardt on investing

The latest issue of Fortune Magazine (article not available online) featured an interview with investing legend Michael Steinhardt. Formely a hedge fund manager with his firm Steinhardt Partnes, he is now retired from investing, and devotes his time to philanthropic endeavors, including Birthright, a program which sends American Jewish youth to Israel for several weeks. His Book No Bull: My Life In and Out of Markets is an interesting read. Here are some of the major points from the Fortune interview:

-Regarding the direction of the market, Steinhardt said he is not comfortable with it and, based on intuition, he is "short a few S&P 500 futures."

-He believes that the hedge fund boom may continue, but questions the number of large hedge funds that survive in spit of mediocre returns. "I would make the case that some long-only, low-cost mutual fund managers should, even in bad markets, achieve better returns than most of the hedge funds," he said.

While Steinhardt is no longer as involved in markets as he once was, his caution in the face of optimism from most of the financial media is something investors may want to pay attention to. Throughout his career, Michael Steinhardt has been right more often than not.