> A few teacher pension funds got a good uptick and they were sharing that around.
The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, who was holding GME, is one of the largest hedge funds in existence, worth over 200 billion dollars. For comparison, Maverick Capital is worth only $15 billion. That is not a case of some little guy teachers making out well, it is the rich (if not the richest) hedge funds getting richer.
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction and risk management techniques to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives.
That is what the OTPP does. That the hedge fund exists to fund pensions is irrelevant. If you dig into the investors behind other funds, you are likely to find that they are also investing to help fund their own retirement.
"Additionally, we complement our efforts by using external hedge fund managers, which gives us access to unique approaches that both add performance and diversify risk."
Hedge fund isn't a technical term, despite having "hedge" in the name. It just means an actively managed fund that anyone finds interesting in some way.
Hedge funds generally have LPs, which they recruit. You can theoretically buy into a hedge fund. You can't buy into a pension fund directly. The incentive structures are different.
I highly doubt anyone is against pension funds making money - even if they are run as a hedge fund.
The political opposition to hedge funds has to do with the fact that they often cater (or are assumed to cater) to the 1%. Who cares if it is 200B? It probably represents the financial interests of tens-of-thousands of teachers.
Depending on how you think the fund should be divided for wealth purposes, if we assume an equal division, the fund alone puts many Ontario teachers into the top 1%. Never mind what other wealth they may have.
They are the 1% you are talking about. I expect what you're really saying is that the political opposition opposes strangers who are perceived as being different, whereas the top 1% comprised of teachers are relatable and maybe even your close friends so you can be happy for their success.
No - this isn't close to true. I'm saying (at least in the US) you need a net-worth of 10M to be in the top 1%. Or, in terms of income, make 500k a year household income.
The Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund averages member 600k per member in assets (200B divided by 330k members). I don't know the Canadian stats but having around 1M in assets as a 60 year old places them around the top 20% or 10% cut-off - not the top 1%.
Regardless, I don't care if people get rich but it is clear that occupy Wall Street was a movement against the perceived notion that billionaires were exploiting the rules - not that teacher's pensions funds were gaining 2% per year more than an index fund.
This isn't some teachers trying to eek out a retirement. It is one of the most prolific hedge funds in existence. They are literally what the movement was against, but the movement only served to help them.
Not that I expect anyone thought that they were buying up shares from retail investors to put the movement in motion. They had to know they would help other funds to hurt the one fund being targeted. It shouldn't surprise anyone that hedge funds have made out like bandits in this.
A personal investor wouldn't be appropriately called a hedge fund, though. A hedge fund is, by definition, funded by a pool of investors. We are talking about hedge funds here.
Op was surely referring to [Jim] Simons' medallion fund and those like it - where it's closed except to family/friends, and in Simon's case fellow colleagues', personal funds, where often a single founder holds a bulk of the interest.
The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, who was holding GME, is one of the largest hedge funds in existence, worth over 200 billion dollars. For comparison, Maverick Capital is worth only $15 billion. That is not a case of some little guy teachers making out well, it is the rich (if not the richest) hedge funds getting richer.