[nirvana]

Unfortunately, the details are being kept confidential, so I'm not sure what is being counted as "hedge funds". There's "hedge funds" that engage in very risky investments, ones that engage in investments that wouldn't normally be risky except that they incur counterparty risk, and then there's hedge funds that could be fundamentally very conservative, even more conservative than Buffett.

For instance, if you ran a fund that simply bought BRK shares, and, each year, bought just enough out of the money options to protect against a %10 decline in BRK, that would be a hedge fund. Buying the puts is a hedging position, but I would say that such an investment would be damn conservative, and certainly in line with Buffett's investments strategy. (He cautions against derivatives, but covering a long position with puts isn't what he means.)

[pflats]

>Unfortunately, the details are being kept confidential, so I'm not sure what is being counted as "hedge funds".

I wouldn't be surprised if they had simply agreed on a subset of prominent hedge funds from '08 that the two agree represents whatever range of investments they think is important. I'd assume they're unwilling to disclose the methodology simply to avoid any accusations of outside manipulation or something.

Makes sense to me, at least.