Home » Dictionary » alpha

alpha

alpha
 n.— «What, exactly, do investors think they are buying when they hire investment managers such as hedge fund general partners? They would probably say something like “the ability to outperform the market”. In professional investor parlance, that is called “alpha”, or the excess returns that the general partner’s skill at active management provides. He knows from number crunching that Ford bonds would come back from the dead, or that nickel inventories were too high.» —“Sometimes monkeys rolling dice won’t do” by John Dizard Financial Times (U.K.) May 17, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

At First Blush (episode #1529)

Book recommendations and the art of apology. Martha and Grant share some good reads, including an opinionated romp through English grammar, a Spanish-language adventure novel, an account of 19th-century dictionary wars, and a gorgeously illustrated...

Abso-Bloomin-Lutely (episode #1526)

The autocomplete function on your phone comes in handy, of course. But is it changing the way we write and how linguists study language? Also, suppose you could invite any two authors, living or dead, to dinner. Who’s on your guest list and...

Recent posts