[belter]

Hedge Fund Managers are also not the brightest flowers:

"The SP 500 Index Out-performed Hedge Funds over the Last 10 Years. And It Wasn’t Even Close": https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/the-sp-500-index-out-performe...

"How Smart Are the Smart Guys? A Unique View from Hedge Fund Stock Holdings" [PDF]: https://jgriffin.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/smart.pdf

"...Hedge funds exhibit no ability to time sectors or pick better stock styles. Surprisingly, we find only weak evidence of differential ability between hedge funds. Overall, our study raises serious questions about the perceived superior skill of hedge fund managers..."

[seanp2k2]

The hedge funds themselves get rich through fees. The investors get robbed. Not sure why anyone still believes in hedge funds.

[bush-bby]

But that’s not the benefit of putting your money in a hedge fund at all, the benefit is hedging against losses, so that you don’t have to worry about losing money when everyone else is.

[dahfizz]

It's literally called a hedge fund, not sure why people would assume they are after the highest & riskiest returns.

[t_mann]

Historically, hedging was the reason when the first such funds launched that allowed them to use a specific regulatory loophole. The name has stuck around much more so than the strategy, though, nowadays there are entire classes of hedge funds that don't necessarily work like that anymore (eg long-only, special situations arbitrage, global macro,...). Nowadays it pretty much just means a specific legal structure, if it means anything at all, since it's become such a widely used term.