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A hedge fund is a lightly regulated investment fund that is typically open to a limited range of investors who pay a performance fee to the fund's investment manager.

Every hedge fund has its own investment strategy that determines the type of investments it undertakes and these strategies are highly individual. As a class, hedge funds undertake a wider range of investment and trading activities than traditional long-only investment funds, and invest in a broader range of assets includinglong and short positions in shares, bonds and commodities. As the name implies, hedge funds often seek tohedge some of the risks inherent in their investments using a variety of methods, notably short selling andderivatives.

In most jurisdictions, hedge funds are open only to a limited range of professional or wealthy investors who meet criteria set by regulators, and are accordingly exempted from many of the regulations that govern ordinary investment funds. The net asset value of a hedge fund can run into many billions of dollars, and the gross assets of the fund will usually be higher still due to leverage. Hedge funds dominate certain specialty markets such as trading within derivatives with high-yield ratings and distressed debt.^[1]

For the most part, hedge funds (unlike mutual funds) are unregulated because they cater to sophisticated investors. In the U.S., laws require that the majority of investors in the fund be accredited. That is, they must earn a minimum amount of money annually and have a net worth of more than $1 million, along with a significant amount of investment knowledge. You can think of hedge funds as mutual funds for the super rich. They are similar to mutual funds in that investments are pooled and professionally managed, but differ in that the fund has far more flexibility in its investment strategies.

It is important to note that hedging is actually the practice of attempting to reduce risk, but the goal of most hedge funds is to maximize return on investment. The name is mostly historical, as the first hedge funds tried to hedge against the downside risk of a bear market by shorting the market (mutual funds generally can't enter into short positions as one of their primary goals). Nowadays, hedge funds use dozens of different strategies, so it isn't accurate to say that hedge funds just "hedge risk". In fact, because hedge fund managers make speculative investments, these funds can carry more risk than the overall market

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