Clark has heard a lot of buzz lately about hedge funds. What is a hedge fund? A bunch of people get together, put in a heavy upfront fee and then invest in a product without any normal government filings. They are popular among the wealthy because they are unregulated. And for some reason they carry a cache that implies a person has “made it.” Really, they are terrible for your wallet. If the hedge fund company makes money on the investment, you make money but they take a big cut. And if they lose money, the participants eat all the cost. So, it is a stacked deck against you. One recent hedge fund group chose the natural gas industry and tried to guess whether the cost would go up or down. Well, investor organizers guessed wrong and lost $5 billion. Stay away from hedge funds!