主题：【讨论】美国7000亿救市计划的缺陷和这次金融危机的深化 -- 厚积薄发

Another issue is the regulators sniffing around. There have been wider calls for transparency and official controls of the industry, which has already been stung by the shock short-selling rules.

Mr Lodge said: "It's a myth to say hedge funds aren't regulated. There is a perception that they are running wild with no oversight, which isn't true. We would welcome some regulation, just as long as it doesn't strangle the industry."

On Friday, the FSA banned short selling in financial stocks, and forced hedge funds to disclose their positions. As the underlying shares rose as a result, the industry was looking at well over 1bn in paper losses on the day.

Stuart McLaren, financial services partner at Deloitte, said: "When the dust has settled, I expect the regulators to look at the role that hedge funds have played in the current issues. I expect there will be increased calls for regulation, but I doubt much will come from it."

Mr Baker said: "Some hedge funds are doing well. However, the number of professionals feeling good about life will be dwindling. The health indicators are generally negative, while costs are up and performance is down. Many are feeling battered and bruised and feeling worried about the future."

Let me now discuss in more detail this unraveling of parts of the hedge fund industry…

First, note that too much of the shadow banking system was about “Schmalpha” rather than “Alpha” i.e. the returns that fund managers and asset managers were getting – by imposing ridiculously high management fees of 2% or more – by parting investors with a good chunk of their assets rather than superior absolute returns. 2/20 most of the time was 2% for the fund managers and no 20% (some time single digit returns and this year actual negative ones) for investors. This scam is now unraveling. Also many funds were following high risk strategy (high leverage and extremely risky bets) that, for a while, were providing superior returns but were bound – with probability one – to lead to the collapse of the such funds. And given lack of transparency in the industry it was very difficult to distinguish between managers getting high return because of reckless gambles compared to those who were superior managers.

Of course there are thousands of high quality managers in the hedge funds industry and some provide superior returns and diversification; but there was also plenty of mediocre talent going into this industry as in the go-go years of the hedge funds bubble any trader with an ok return could raise money and create its own fund. And a bank run on the hedge funds is exacerbated by the fact that, on top of redemptions of the investors, shares many funds are highly leveraged and rely – like broker dealers – on overnight repos for their funding. And with prime brokers now defunct (Bear, Lehman) or squeezed and losing billions there is a significant risk that credit to hedge funds will be significantly curtailed.

Could one or more systemically important fund go belly up and lead to a systemic shocks. While no major player today is as leveraged as LTCM in 1998 many of these funds are much larger than LTCM was. So while until now the financial crisis has been concentrated among traditional banks, broker dealers and their off balance sheet scams (SIVs/conduits) one cannot rule out that some systemically important hedge fund may get into trouble with systemic consequences. In 1998 the NY Fed orchestrated a private sector bailout of LTCM. What would happen today if a large and systemically important hedge fund were to collapse? Will the Fed then extend to deposit insurance to hedge funds too as it did for money market funds? Will the Fed extend its lender of last resort support to hedge funds as it did for major broker dealers? Of course not even if the events of the last few months show the desperation of the policy makers leading them to desperate – and at times reckless – actions.

Given the systemic importance of larger hedge funds the time when the hedge fund industry will start to be directly regulated are also coming closer. Indirect regulation – the approach favored by the industry and the G7 so far – has not worked. We will soon move towards more direct regulation.

Already the SEC is literally forcing all hedge funds to reveal their short positions as part of its investigation of alleged manipulation by hedge funds of financial firms’ stock. While months ago hedge funds were fighting a battle to avoid even minimal reporting of their positions to authorities they are now slapped with across the board restrictions on short sales and being forced to report their short sales to the SEC. So the process of directly regulating hedge funds has already effectively begun even before formal executive and legislative action is taken to formalize this regulation.