Reblog: Hedge Fund Managers Struggle to Master Their Miserable New World
Howard Fischer, wearing a white shirt and khakis, leans back into a window seat at a juice bar in Greenwich, Connecticut, sips a cold-brewed Mexican mocha and shares his angst.
“It’s miserable, miserable,” the 57-year-old manager of $1.1 billion Basso Capital Management says of hedge fund returns over the past few years. “If that’s the normal expectation, I don’t have a business.”
Fischer’s lament and ones like it are echoing through the industry. It’s an existential crisis for former masters of the universe who once prided themselves on their trading prowess. Now they’re questioning their wisdom and their ability to generate profits that made them among the richest in finance.