Bloomberg reporter Katherine Burton's first book, Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning, is based on interviews with eighteen of the top hedge fund managers in the world: Michael Steinhardt, Boone Pickens, Jim Chanos and, my personal favorite, Dan Loeb, just to name a few.

The emphasis on the legends may be the book's weakness. All of the managers interviewed are running huge sums of money for institutional investors, and none of these could be characterized as mom-'n'-pop stock-pickin' shops. These firms employ armies of analysts and, with some exceptions, the profiles are repetitive: They look to hire smart people with interesting backgrounds who think independently, etc., etc.

Many of the profiles seem to blend together, and only the interviews with Mr. Chanos and Mr. Loeb could be characterized as truly memorable or insightful. Would-be hedgehogs beware: there is little practical advice here. This is, happily, not a how-to book, and focuses more on the minds and backgrounds of some of the top money managers in the world.

If you idolize guys like Loeb and Chanos, this is probably a book you'll want to pick up. But the vast majority of investors would do just as well skipping this one.

Book review: Hedge Hunters, by Katherine Burton originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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.

Michael Steinhardt on investing originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.