Hedge funds no universal panacea

In spring, as the poet Tennyson once said, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. This spring, however, with world equity markets still struggling and central banks continuing to walk a tightrope between rising inflation and falling consumer confidence, investors' fancy is likely to turn towards thoughts of not losing too much money. As we all know, the value of investments can go down as well as up. But that does not detract from the fact that we would all rather they didn't. In a rising inflation environment, though, parking all one's assets on deposit could still lead t...