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Comment by zimablue | Hacker News Reader

That's cool, so US bonds only then?

Don't forget mortgage-backed securities.. oh wait.

In all seriousness though, large pension plans have very diverse portfolios. Ontario teachers used to own 80% of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System owns Oxford Properties, which owns and manages the office building I work in (and many others).

Edit: Added "Employees" to OMERS.

Major League Sports teams are generally pretty solid investments. Also, the Ontario Teachers didn't just own the Leafs, they owned MLSE which includes the Leafs, Raptors, Argos, Toronto FC, the Marlies plus the arenas at which those teams play. It's not a bad investment to own all but one (they don't own the Jays) pro sports team in a city.

Ah right! Thank you for the correction.

I mean a large percentage of the fund should probably be in bonds, shouldn't it? Depending on how many are drawing out vs. paying in.

Don't BR ridiculous. There are lots of mutual funds that don't experience the swings that many hedge funds do.

There are many hedge funds with much lower volatility than the average mutual fund. Hedge funds are not inherently more or less risky than mutual funds, they are just actively managed instead of passively managed.

Mutual funds can be actively managed also. Hedge funds are a riskier investment: they are more opaque, can do more exotic things. But pension funds are sophisticated investors and should be able to make intelligent decisions about using them as part of a portfolio.

You mispelled "full of fee's that suck out the value."

It reminds me a story in rare no-nonsense books on stock trading about 90% people losing money or doing less than stock index because of trading fees while activelly managing it. The ability to make good money in stock markets is a rare talent and hedge funds only make hedge fund managers rich, most of the time.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat...

Maybe not over (specific) very short periods, but it depends on the mutual and it depends on the hedge fund. If you're saying pension funds should be locked in then you can't invest in anything that has exposure to equities, see: 2008, 1974, 1930.

I was just trying to nudge the post I was replying to into realisation that you either accept burning significant money to avoid risk or accept the chance of burning more money. This kind of "pensions should invest in the good guys who don't take risks..." well that's only govt bonds, and one day those will pop also.

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