A global poll by Bloomberg has found that commodities are now the preferred investment during the next year.  Bloomberg users were asked which asset class will offer the highest returns and the lowest and the majority voted for commodities; in a July poll, users believed stocks offered the best returns.  The change follows a 27% increase in the UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index and a smaller 17% gain in the S&P 500 Stock Index since that July poll.

Real estate and bonds also switched positions in the ranking of which asset class would offer the lowest returns. In July, 40 percent said real estate would rate last while 29 percent said bonds. This week’s poll showed 40 percent cited bonds and 24 percent real estate.

The poll of investors and analysts on six continents was conducted Oct. 23-27. It was based on interviews with a random sample of 1,452 Bloomberg subscribers, representing decision makers in markets, finance and economics. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.  Source

I recently heard Eben Pagan speak in LA at a marketing conference on how business is typically conducted.  I was reminded of that talk while I was in Boston last week for our Hedge Fund Premium networking event (which was great).

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The streets in Boston were actually old cow paths that the city decided to just pave over to create the roads of the city.  The result, is a very complicated maze of one way streets which really only make sense to the most veteran cab drivers.  This is not the cows fault they simply walked typically in the direction of least resistance.  The point here is that nobody stepped back and looked at where the cows had wandered and asked if there was a better way to get the project done…they simply followed where cows had walked in the past.

Pagan’s point in telling this story was that in every business, every form of marketing and even within the hedge fund business there are cow paths everywhere.  Are you and your business wandering around on cow paths of what others have done in the past, or are you building a super highway straight towards your goal?

Areas to examine for hedge fund managers could including hiring, capital raising, employee management, performance reporting, transparency, governance, and investor relations.  Our team now often steps back and looks at competitors, other industries, and steps to the work we are trying to complete to see if there is a more direct or efficient way of completing it.  Hope this story helps.

- Richard Wilson


Tags: hedge fund cow paths, hedge fund processes, business processes of hedge fund managers, hedge fund managers and how they operate their small businesses