There are thousands of investment instruments to choose from, including interest baring checking accounts, savings accounts, stocks, bonds, commodities, mutual funds hedge funds. Each type of investment will appeal to a different class of individual depending their tolerance for risk, length of time to invest and other factors. Those who have big money and feel comfortable investing may participate in hedge funds. Those particular folks and their financial assets make hedge funds a trillion dollar industry worldwide.
Trillion Dollar Industry
Hedge funds are particularly enticing to investors because of the amount of money required to invest in one because huge profits can be had despite the high investment minimum (usually $250,000). Hedge funds are the investment tools of the very wealth as they tend to have the financial assets needed to partake in the global trillion dollar market.
Stating the actual industry size of hedge funds is a difficult task as the industry is in constant flux. As the market goes up and down, so does the net asset amount invested in hedge funds. Additionally, hedge funds come and go, and that also affects the overall bottom line total for the entire industry.
Hedge Fund Value Today
One word that can sum up the industry size of hedge funds is “massive.” There are estimated reports that in 2008, the industry peaked at $2.5 trillion worth of investments. However, do to recent turn of the economy at large, the amount may have been reduced to a more conservative $1 trillion in assets. Regardless of the actual dollar amount of the industry size of hedge funds, the sector will continue and grow and set new industry highs in the future.