Hedge Funds

Developing a career in hedge funds can be an attractive professional field for those an individual interested in the financial market, undertaking in-depth analysis on a daily basis, and working with numbers. Hedge funds are alternative investment vehicles that comprehend a pool of investment funds, private partnerships and companies, using a variety of different investment techniques to try to maximize gains and reduce the chances of losing money. Pursuing a career in hedge funds always implies making different trades to ensure that any risk inherent to a certain investment portfolio will be counterbalanced by the profits made from another position within the same investment portfolio.

In other words, a hedge fund manager is in charge of neutralizing the negative effects that the market can have on the investment. In the 1950s, the opportunity to establish a career in hedge funds became possible as the first hedge funds appeared in the market.

These investment options experienced a significant growth over time, although they have been severely affected by the current financial crisis. According to statistics, over 2,000 jobs were lost in hedge funds in 2009 and almost 7,000 hedge funds suffered severe losses. If you are interested in pursuing a career in hedge funds, you should be ready to work under a lot of pressure and, crucially, you should be passionate about working with numbers and analyzing them. It is also important that you know how to operate with spreadsheets and that you know how to read, interpret and reproduce information in graphics.

There are different positions that can be held as part of a career in hedge funds, and all of them involve taking on challenges on a daily basis. Hedge funds can be of different sizes: the smaller managing up to $1million, the larger managing up to $10billion.