Forbes raises a question about whether The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS)'s $9 billion hedge fund, Global Alpha, will fail. I don't know, but rumors to that effect raise serious questions about whether the banks will be able to clean up the messes they make in pursuit of those eight figure bonuses. That's because Global Alpha is a symptom of a bigger problem -- the Black Box Market.
I pointed out that Global Alpha was having problems a few months ago in this post. So it doesn't surprise me to read that it's down 16% for the year. Global Alpha lets computers make decisions. Its investors just have to trust that those computers always make money no matter what happens. Unfortunately, the 1998 collapse of Long Term Capital Management demonstrates that smart computer programs can fail at the point of maximum peril.
And this brings us to the Black Box Market. As this morning's announcement by BNP Paribas that three of its subprime hedge funds will not redeem investors' money suggests, the global capital markets are at risk because of their opacity. Specifically, The Black Box Market entails four mysteries:
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