(Yahoo Finance) Not since the fictitious Duke Brothers of the movie Trading Places has a bet captured the imagination of investors like the one between Warren Buffett and hedge fund manager Ted Seides. But unlike the $1 wager between Mortimer and Randolph, Buffett and Seides have a lot more money at stake.
Although he’s considered the greatest stock picker of all time and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) is up 2,500% in the past quarter century alone, Buffett is betting on his belief that hedge funds can’t beat an index fund. And so far, Buffett is winning big.
A little more than eight years ago, Seides accepted Buffett’s challenge and picked a group of five hedge funds that he expected to collectively outperform an index fund chosen by Buffett. The winner would get $1 million donated to a charity of his choice. Each man put $340,000 in bonds that were supposed to mature to $1 million by 2018. But with the rally in bonds, they’re worth closer to $1.4 million today.
