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Hedge funds reap record profits from bets on QE
Funny how it works that way .....
Super-rich hedge fund financiers emerged as the big winners from the Bank of England's money printing programme in 2012, as pensioners and savers were made to struggle with shrunken incomes.

The Bank of England has pumped £375bn of money into the economy since the start of its QE programme in 2009. Much of the high-rolling industry bet that quantitative easing (QE) would boost global markets and those that stuck to the strategy made record profits.

Hedge fund expert Philippe Bonnefoy said: "The masters of equity and credit trading strategies have done their homework in 2012 and reaped benefits turbocharged by an ocean of government-sponsored liquidity."

The industry's success will sit uneasily with savers and pensioners who have been condemned to rock bottom interest rates and reduced annuity payments caused by QE-induced low gilt yields.

Saga, the pensioner lobby group, has claimed that QE has contributed to a 9% drop in real incomes among the over-50s since early 2008. And the Bank has conceded that the beneficiaries of QE have been the investor classes while those relying on income have suffered.

Last year saw a resurgence of some of the biggest and best-known hedge funds in the world, according to the latest figures collected by HSBC.


Posted by: lotp 2012-12-31
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=359098