The partners strode to the plate and rapped hit after hit, day after day. More confident than ever, they lengthened their swing, which is to say they leveraged further. By the spring of 1996, Long-Term had an astounding $140 billion in assets, thirty times its underlying capital. Though still unknown to 99 percent of Americans, Long-Term was two and a half times as big as Fidelity Magellan, the largest mutual fund, and four times the size of the next largest hedge fund.¹
