Hedge Fund Investments on Main Street

The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), an international trade body for the hedge fund industry, is reporting that an absolute majority of all assets under management by hedge funds and funds-of-funds are held by institutional investors. In addition, a third of those assets from institutional investors now come from pension funds. While the AIMA has some interest in promoting hedge funds and other alternative investments, the breakdown does highlight how a growing number of institutional investors, including pension funds, university endowments, and foundations that are invested in alternative investments, with the numbers growing each year. While there is certainly reason for individual investors and those on "main street" to be upset with some of what has been happening on Wall Street, using a blanket approach of penalizing all of Wall Street could have unintended consequences for individual pensions and those charitable and cultural activities often sponsored by endowments. Saying that "what is good for wall street is no longer good for main street," to paraphrase some in Washington, could be bad for the average citizen if actions begin to match the rhetoric.