Editor's Note: Ever wonder about the inception of Hedgeye? How it all started?
Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough's memoir Diary Of A Hedge Fund Manager chronicles the life and business insights McCullough learned on his way "from the top, to the bottom, and back again." The following is a free excerpt.
AN EXCERPT
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Just as politics were transformed by YouTube and Twitter, so too will the financial markets as they inevitably succumb to unprecedented transparency. From Madoff to AIG, financial markets cataclysm has drastically changed the way the industry is perceived. The barn door has been blown off its hinges, and the public at large continues to stare inside with disbelief. Some 92 million Americans have money invested in mutual funds, according to the Investment Company Institute. Around 62 American participate in some form of a retirement plan, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. An estimated 47 percent of American households, or 54.5 million households, have some form of ownership of stocks or bonds, according to a joint study by the ICI and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Has anyone from Wall Street told them anything about the financial meltdown that they can understand? Or believe? No matter what you glean from reading about my experiences, I trust that you can see the highs, lows, and life lessons of a hedge fund manager are of no greater significance than those of any other profession. We all share the same intrinsic motivations, in work, and for that matter, in life: to create; collaborate; meet challenges; take worthwhile risks, and avoid unnecessary ones. Money may or may not be the root of all evil, but we all crave validation. We all get up every morning hoping that everyone else is doing the right thing when nobody is looking. What follows is a glimpse, mine, of what hedge funds were doing during this past decade. |
