Seekingalpha.com – Since inception, its funds have returned on average 40% annually, which explains how they can charge a 50% performance fee to investors, compared to the normal 20% that most hedge funds charge. They are very active traders and at any given time can account for up to 3% of the volume on the New York Stock Exchange and up to 1% on the Nasdaq. And, if you’re curious, you can see a picture of Cohen’s house here.

Before beginning, we do want to stress that since SAC actively trades positions quite frequently, tracking it via its13F is not necessarily beneficial and we advise that those reading take this with a grain of salt. We are simply covering the fund since it’s a prominent fund and many of our readers were curious about what it was up to these days.

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Tags: active traders, grain of salt, inception, investors, nasdaq, new-york-stock, new-york-stock-exchange, performance fee, sac, york-stock-exchange

AlterNet – Jack Nash, a key pioneer of the global hedge fund industry, passed away this past summer. Much of the rest of the industry may soon join him six feet under. The industry, one insider told the Financial Times last week, has embarked on "a sort of death march."

Hedge funds now appear to be the next chunk of high finance headed for meltdown. They may actually do their melting before most Americans even know what they are.

A quick primer: Hedge funds have been operating in the financial world’s immensely lucrative shadows ever since Jack Nash co-founded Odyssey Partners, the granddaddy of the modern hedge fund, in 1982, just one year after Ronald Reagan slashed tax rates on America’s highest incomes.

The new tax rates — the lowest the rich had seen since the early 1930s — meant that wealthy Americans suddenly had plenty of new cash sloshing in their pockets. Nash promised these affluents high annual returns if they gave him their money to invest — and then delivered. Over the next 14 years, Odyssey delighted investors with a 24 percent average annual return.

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Tags: advisory-services, bank-debt, closer-look, early-1990s, east-russia, fund-of-fund, global-reach, hakan-yalincak, investment-funds, leon-cooperman, medallion, s-david, sac, sachs

New York Post – Billionaire Tom Petters fancied himself the next Warren Buffett – that is until his empire starting crashing down like a house of cards.

The feds accuse Petters, one of Minneapolis’ fastest rising business stars, of secretly being at the center of an elaborate $2 billion corporate ruse, stretching over the past decade, while he hobnobbed with billionaires and movie stars.

Petters stepped down from his Minneapolis-based Petters Group Worldwide after federal agents raided his offices in several cities, acting on a tip from a disgruntled insider.

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Tags: bankruptcy, cash-flow, clapp, conglomerate, disagreements, rayner, rest-of-the-world, sac, sun-country-airlines, value-investors, wilbur-ross