Hedge funds: the mysterious power pulling strings on Wall Street

Hedge funds operate with nearly free rein and on murky ethical ground, bullying banks and recruiting the best – all to questionable results

Chris Arnade
theguardian.com, Sunday 1 June 2014 10.00 EDT

Hedge funds, those financial funds run by extraordinarily rich men, are going mainstream. Not content to be investments for just the super rich and super connected, they are starting to offer services to the average investor.

A good example comes this week from hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, who is famous on Wall Street but not yet a household name. He wants to start a small fund with a public listing to collect money from the public that he can then invest.

Ackman's new fund itself is not a hedge fund, but because he is a giant in the hedge-fund world, regular investors may be attracted to the mystique of a world that usually locks them out.