Reply #31: Hedge Fund Manager Jim Rogers Says Industry Peaked

[54anickel]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ayazD5UtWTqE&refer=us

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum hedge fund with investor George Soros, said the industry has peaked because stock and bond returns are dwindling and there's a shortage of good money managers.

``I'm not too optimistic about hedge funds because you won't be making a lot of money from stocks in the next 15 to 20 years and bonds will be doing horribly,'' Rogers said today at a hedge fund conference in Tokyo. ``I'm told there are almost 10,000 hedge funds. With overcrowding, there will be some charlatans and incompetence. You can't have that many smart 29-year-olds around.''

Rogers, 62, who co-founded the Quantum Fund in 1970, said most of today's managers made their reputations during the stock market rally of the 1990s. It will be difficult to replicate that success in the future, he said.

Hedge funds are loosely regulated investment pools designed to profit from falling as well as rising market prices. It's the most lucrative and fastest-growing part of the money-management business. Globally, hedge funds attracted more than $100 billion in the first nine months of 2004, boosting the industry's assets to about $890 billion, according to estimates from Tremont Capital Management Inc. in Rye, New York.

Rogers, who retired at the age of 37 with what he said was ``enough money to satisfy a lifelong yearning for adventure,'' said commodities represented the best asset class for investments and China was the best place to make money.

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