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Hedge funds lose $180 billion as woes deepen

By Zuo Likun (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-10-24 17:09

Western hedge funds, the defining symbol of Wall Street's hyper-wealth, have already lost US$180 billion during the last three months' financial turmoil, according to a New York Times report.

The funds are designed to make quick money from short-term buying and selling of equities, and used to be considered as safe investments.

However, hit by the plummeting markets, wealthy private investors are now anxiously looking for ways to flee the funds. In total, 217 hedge funds worldwide have disappeared during the last three months, according to a report by Hedge Fund Research. The gross assets of all Western hedge funds are estimated at US$1.7 trillion.

"For the past five or six years, it seemed anybody could go to their computer and print up a business card and say they were in the hedge fund business, and raise a pot of money. That's going to be gone forever," the New York Times quoted Richard H. Moore, the treasurer of North Carolina, as saying.

Hedge funds are typically open only to a limited range of professional or wealthy investors. However, because hedge funds are largely unregulated, in recent years, some public pension funds, foundations and endowments have poured billions of dollars into hedge funds, thus spreading the painful loss far beyond downtown Manhattan, the newspaper report said.

Greenspan: Free Market Doesn't Work

Former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, once deemed the infallible defender of the Western financial system, admitted to the US Congress Thursday that he had "made a mistake" in trusting that free markets could regulate.

A fervent advocate of deregulation during his 18-year tenure at the US central bank's helm, Greenspan has faced mounting criticism this year for having refused to consider cracking down on credit derivatives.

Greenspan, who retired from his post in 2006, told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he was partially wrong in not having tried to regulate the market for credit default swaps.

He conceded a more serious flaw in his own philosophy that unfettered free markets sit at the root of a superior economy, like that of the United States, the world's largest.

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms," Greenspan said.

Greenspan said he was in "a state of shocked disbelief" about the breakdown in the ability of banks to regulate themselves. He warned about the economic consequences of the crisis, saying that he "cannot see how we will avoid a significant rise in layoffs and unemployment."

Consumer spending will decline, he said, adding that a stabilization of home prices would be necessary to bring the crisis to an end.

Several committee members asked who would ultimately be punished for a crisis that has ravaged their constituents' savings accounts and could lead to an enormous loss of jobs.

In his prepared remarks, Greenspan said he saw "no choice" but to impose legal quality requirements for certain types of securities, and added that other regulatory changes would have to be made.