Fund of Funds Investing: A Roadmap to Portfolio Diversification

Epilogue: Turning Points

As we started our book, we began with the December 2008 date that has forever altered the landscape of investing and certainly of the hedge fund industry. On the other hand, several significant dates in history have created unparalleled economic opportunities because of the changing geopolitical climate at those historic times:

• May 4, 1904. With the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, construction began on the Panama Canal.

• May 6, 1954. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1954 creating the Interstate Highway System.

• May 25, 1962. President John F. Kennedy announced an ambitious effort to send an American astronaut to the moon by the end of the decade.

A review of the historical background of these major ground-breaking projects shows that national security was the driving force behind each achievement. The construction of the Panama Canal was driven by the need to quickly move the U.S. Navy fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and to avoid the two months needed to travel around Cape Horn at the tip of South America—a 12,000-mile journey. The Interstate Highway System was created during the post-Korean, Russian Cold War era to allow troops to move quickly to different parts of the country in the event of a military attack. President Kennedy, in an announcement before a joint session of Congress, announced the space program to "catch up and overtake" the Soviet Union in the "space race." The common theme connecting ...