Hedge Funds - Good or not?

Hello,

Well, I have just had my parents staying with me, so I've had a lot of my time taken up doing touristy things, and so have no been as active as I might be with my learnings.

I just started reading about hedge funds. They seem an interested product, in that they make money regardless of market direction. The idea of a hedge fund is to reduce risk. We all want to reduce risk don't we? I like the idea of that, but still being able to make money.

The one major downside to a hedge fund is that historically they've had high fees. It seems that if we could get into a situation where we could have a hedge fund with all it's benefits, but lower the fees involved, we might have a winning formula?

So that got me thinking, could I find out about a hedge fund, and how it works, then emulate it for myself, and thus achieve that above.

It seems that hedge funds work on the basic idea that you have short and long stocks, and further to that, you also have option call and put too, and in so doing, you hedge the risk.

It seems then that a hedge fund could be good. I will read on further and detail my findings in future posts.