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Sepculation

The opposite of hedging is speculating.

There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.

Mark Twain
Following the Equator, 1897

Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment.

Washington Irving
Wolfert's Roost, 1855

Hedge funds should be renamed, perhaps to ‘anything-but-hedge' funds.

Ginger Szala
Futures, January, 1996, p. 8

Speculators ought to keep quiet and speculate.

George Soros
Futures, October, 1995, p. 68

I think reporters make a mistake when they say that speculation is inherently bad. Anyone who is involved with money has to take risks ... To write about risk as if it's foreign to businesses is missing the essential nature of what businesses do.

Saul Hansell
Media Critic, Fall, 1995, p. 63

The beauty of finance and speculation was that they could be different things to different men. To some: poetry or high drama; to others, physics, scientific and immutable; to still others, politics or philosophy. And to still others, war.

Michael M. Thomas, 1990, p. 37
Hanover Place

Some people think of speculative traders as gamblers; they earn too much money and provide no economic value. But to avoid crises, markets must have liquidity suppliers who react quickly, who take contrarian positions when doing so seems imprudent, who search out unoccupied habitats and populate those habitats to provide the diversity that is necessary, and who focus on risk taking and risk management.

Richard M. Bookstaber
Risk Management Principles and Practices
AIMR, 1999, p. 17
 
Risk versus return.  What can be lost versus what can be gained.  The essence of every critical decision.  Invest in those dependable Treasury bonds yielding a slim but certain return, or throw caution to the wind and snap up shares of the high-tech start-up that could become next week's billion-dollar headline - or, just as easily, a bankrupt memory.  Marry the safe, stable person your parents adore, or run away with the loser who ignites body and soul with a single glance - but lives only in the moment.  Risk versus return.  A simple concept that often imposes difficult choices.  And, sometimes, terrible consequences.
 
Stephen Frey
Silent Partner
2003, p. 10
 
Can I show you something in a hedge fund?
Daniel P. Collins
Futures
March 2008, p. 18
 

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Last updated:  March 3, 2008