This past week has been especially hectic for me since I had to take a crash course on PHP, MySQL, Photoshop in my freetime after work. I had not touched Web Design or Development in eight years, when I learned HTML and JavaScript. As you have probably noticed by now, the forum and blog have been added to my brand new site Cover The Hedge, being hosted by GoDaddy. I registered this site on July 4th since I found a great deal and didn't have anything better to do. For a three year domain name registration plus e-mail, 10 MySQL databases, 5GB of disk space and 250GB/month of bandwith, I only had to pay a one-time fee of $21.45. Now that I know it only costs $7/year for a domain name, I am surprised at how few people actually take time to make their own websites (I'm obviously not counting blogs, facebook accounts, or MySpace pages).
Although you have made it this far, you are probably skeptical of someone as young as myself (I'm turning 21 in November) imparting his so-called "knowledge" about hedge funds. Well, first of all, I have spent a lot of time reading up on and studying them. At this point I am only able to reiterate some knowledge that has already been published in books, but that will save you some time from having to do it yourself. Second of all, I am working near Greenwich, CT, which is generally known to be the hedge fund capital of the world. So if it's any consolation, I would probably be more knowledgeable about hedge funds, if only through diffusion. This summer I am working at a public finance consulting firm, where I spend all day developing a newer version of this software that allows investment bankers structure deals for city or state government agencies. When government agencies decide to issue bonds to cover funding for the construction of a bridge for example, they need to determine two things: 1) What kind of bonds to issue and 2) What portfolio of investments to hold with the capital on hand while the bridge is being constructed. That's where the software and I come in. The program takes in all of the relevant balance sheets, runs it through a linear equation solver and spits out a solution that maximizes (in terms of NPDV) the investment return (asset) and minimizes the of the bond issues (liability). This job has been a blessing because of all the opportunities it will provide me.
