Day: January 20, 2013
Categories
How hedge funds get their edge
When a former trader from Galleon Group was asked what the word “edge” meant to him, he laughed and said that from the day he started at Galleon to the day he left, it was probably the most commonly used term around the office. It was such a priority, the trader added, that if you didn’t have it, you’d be quickly left behind. It meant that you knew something that others didn’t. Another trader—a witness in the government’s insider-trading investigation—was asked if he knew of any hedge fund that didn’t traffic in illegal information, according to the person familiar with the inquiry: No, the source answered, they would never survive. In this way, trading on nonpublic material information is similar to doping in professional cycling: Once someone like Lance Armstrong starts doing it, everyone else has to as well.
– from BusinessWeek
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The job market in America is brutal
“Someone recently forwarded to me an ad that was posted on the electronic bulletin board for parents at a prestigious private school in Manhattan. Here it is, with names and some other details omitted:
My sister recommended a close friend and former classmate at Harvard who is looking for babysitting jobs in the NYC area. He studied psychology and graduated in 2011, and is currently working part-time as an intern in Midtown. He is a caring, gentle guy and is absolutely great with children.
If he didn’t get a scholarship the poor fellow must have spent $190,000 on that Harvard degree.”
-from Forbes