Hedge Funds
Ultralow to negative borrowing costs across the developed world and epic fiscal laxity has pushed risk-taking into the stratosphere. : Watching Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management hedge fund stumble triggers more traumatic memories than global finance veterans like to admit. For many, parallels between the 1998 blowup of Long-Term Capital Management and Hwang’s forced liquidation of more than $20 billion worth of stocks on March 26 were too strong for comfort. The details differ, but the underlying forces—heavily leveraged positions colliding with the hubristic belief that past crises can’t happen again—are essentially the same.