From Zero to Sixty on Hedge Funds and Private Equity 3.0

by Jonathan Stanford Yu

This books looks to give you two things regarding hedge funds, private equity, and other asset management firms. Two things that anybody can learn and then use to talk about with their friends and coworkers. The first is the knowledge - a foundation tool set of key words, industry phrases and financial concepts made clear in plain english. This book puts meanings and understanding to terms you may have already heard in finance but did not quite understand. There is no math and there are no equations. This is not an academic paper nor does it want to be. The goal is to help you grasp that concepts. Just interesting stories and detailed explanations to get you familiar with a variety of • How hedge and private equity funds are structured • Who their investors are • Pension funds and endowments. The model practiced by the $20 billion Yale Endowment and the $650 billion Norway Pension Fund • Fund investing strategies. Event-driven (including IPOs, splits and spinoffs), merger arbitrage, private equity type sidepockets, and more • Junk bonds, options, swaps, and other derivatives • Leveraged buyouts and other types of private equity investing • Venture capital funds and big changes affecting the venture capital industry The second thing you get makes this more than just a compilation of Wikipedia articles. Imagine yourself sitting next to a fund or an investor in a fund and observing them do something or make a move. Sure you want to know “what” they did but the stuff that would be truly interesting is the “why”. What is going through their head in doing this? This book walks you through it all so that you get to take in the mindsets, perspectives and incentives of the fund’s managers, investors and more. There is a whole lot more strategy going on than what you might at first think. It does not matter who you A student in school thinking about joining the alternative asset management industry, a retiree who wants to know more about these weird fund things, or a person who works with or near a hedge fund but has no idea what they really do. Does not matter. The only thing you need to have is a desire to start learning. If you are familiar with some of it, you can build on it here. If you are beginning from scratch (just as I myself was), you are in good hands. About 3.0: The third version of From Zero to Sixty is an update on many of the growing trends in hedge funds and private equity from the rise and fall of global macro investing to the emergence of sovereign wealth funds as the most powerful investing entities on Earth. Performance figures and statistics are updated. New concepts like short squeezes are brought to light. It is more of what you want to know. Despite the 3.0 moniker and the new cover, this book’s goal remains the Bring people up to speed on a fast-moving and complicated industry full of difficult lingo. This book is an education, a learning course set up with you in mind. That has not changed. The world changes every day. This book wants you to help you keep up with it. So download a free sample and give it a shot.

280 pages, Paperback

Published August 21, 2015

About the author

As you may have guessed, I am Asian and yes my father really did give me the middle name of Stanford. My sister's middle name is Princeton. Ambitious to say the least, he nevertheless professed to be nonplussed when neither of his offspring applied (and thus not accepted) to their eponymous institutions.

I was born in Southern California, traveled up and did a stint of toddler and childhood in the Northern California-Cupertino area and then traveled back down to Los Angeles and Orange County for a residency specializing in "Teenager Studies" (A program from which I graduated with such belt-busting success that they promoted me into a special department called "The Twenties"). I then attended the University of California, Berkeley, where I stumbled aimlessly through a variety of interesting, mind blowing and thought provoking classes as well as a whole lot of other classes that were nothing like that.

The majority of my work experience has been in or around asset management and finance, which means I have spent over four years in the industry. Thanks to an extraordinary dose of luck, I have been fortunate enough to work at some truly great places with some truly great people and I thank them every day for the opportunities they have brought me.

Reviews

[WenJing He]

captivating, refreshing, and entertaining. Provides very good picture and explanation about the hedge fund and private equity world.