Minyanville.com – While they’re not deviously plotting the demise of the worlds’ most powerful financial institutions, hedge funds are loading up on another popular trade: Cash.

According to the Financial Times, Citigroup estimates hedge funds have recently squirreled away as much as $600 billion in cash, of which $100 billion is held in money market funds -those same money market funds Washington so graciously propped up last week.

With good risk-reward investment opportunities in short supply, hedge funds — paid handsomely to manage risk — are relying heavily on the safety of cash to ride out recent market turmoil. It’s telling that for those whose livelihoods depend on beating the market, the investment du jour is no investment at all.

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Tags: ambiguity, curbs, fellow-shareholders, investment-funds, mattia, sacm, savings-and-loan-crisis, south-korea, turnover, vanguard-group

Daily Telegraph – As short-selling is banned to protect Britain’s banks, Gordon Rayner names the men who have made millions from the financial crisis

As 70,000 employees of HBOS wonder which of them will still have jobs this time next month, they will no doubt be looking for someone to blame for the extinction of their once great employer.

As the dust settled yesterday on the ruins of Britain’s fifth-biggest banking group, there was little doubt as to the immediate cause of their misery – the hedge fund billionaires who have made a killing by playing poker with their livelihoods.

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Tags: business-models, closure, financial-regulator, institutional-investment, market-abuse, mattia, ouster