Alfred Winslow Jones, founder of the first hedge fund
The history of human development and new discoveries sometimes depends less on scientists sitting in their offices trying to make the next breakthrough, and more on a confluence of circumstances and ordinary people who found themselves in the right place at the right time.
For example, today the word "hedge fund" and the structure of managing other people's capital are familiar to almost anyone who is in any way connected with finance.
However, before World War II, no one could have imagined that global finance and assets would be managed by hedge funds. All this became possible thanks to the legendary figure of Alfred Winslow Jones.
Early years
The future founder of hedge funds was lucky to be born into a very wealthy family; his father, Arthur Winslow Jones, was an executive director at General Electric.
The future financier was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1900. When he was only four years old, his family emigrated from Australia to the United States, as his father was offered a number of positions in that country.
After receiving his diploma, it became clear that specialists in this field were not in demand at the moment, so Alfred got a job on a steamship that transported cargo to different parts of the world.
It was working on a ship that allowed me to see the world and establish new connections.
In 1925, Alfred Winslow Jones was noticed by the main US institution dealing with foreign policy.
His career developed rapidly, and by the early 1930s, he had become the US vice consul in Berlin. In Germany, Winslow Jones started a family, marrying the daughter of the German artist Blok.
The marriage did not last even a couple of years, and soon fell apart when Alfred Winslow Jones married a second time, he became a participant in the Spanish Civil War, carrying out government assignments.
There he also met Ernest Hemingway, becoming his drinking buddy and friend. Many biographers and literary scholars to this day draw clear connections between the characters of this writer and the life story of Alfred Winslow Jones.
Hedge Fund: An Introduction to the Stock Exchange
The idea of a hedge fund didn't immediately occur to Jones. After returning from his Spanish adventures in 1941, he earned a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University, while simultaneously taking a job as a journalist at the print publication Fortune.
One of the editorial assignments was to study new popular methods of stock market analysis. Jones approached the topic with great responsibility and immersed himself in it.
Moreover, he became so immersed in the study process that he began developing his own strategies and then testing them.
Some of the published methods turned out to be quite profitable, which became the basis for the creation of the AW Jones & Co fund, the authorized capital of which amounted to $100 thousand.
In just three years, the newly created fund was able to demonstrate 300% profitability, and its positive example generated a multitude of followers.
After some time, due to the unviability of its strategy, the fund ceased managing investors' funds and instead began investing in other hedge funds. Alfred Winslow Jones died on June 2, 1989, at the age of 88.
