It's 2013, and that means that Warren Buffett is 5 years into a bet he made against two hedge fund managers at New York based fund Protege Partners.
Back in 2008, Buffett told Ted Seides and Jeffrey Tarrant of Protege that funds that invest in hedge funds for their clients would not beat the S&P 500 over ten years. The loser of this bet has to donate $1 million to the winner's charity of choice on December 31st, 2017.
Right at this very moment, Buffett is still winning. That may not be too surprising, since according to hedge fund tracker HFR, hedge funds returned an average of 5.5% in 2012.
Protege built an index of five undisclosed funds that invest in hedge funds for the bet. Bloomberg, however, was able to track the wager's progress last year by looking at the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index, which has been roughly tracking Protege's index (aside from adjustments made for extra fees etc.).
Then Bloomberg compared that to the Vanguard Fund's Admiral (VFA) share index, a mutual fund which Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
This year the VFA returned 15.96%.
Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index, on the other hand, didn't crack 5%.
So chalk yet another year up for the Oracle of Omaha on this one.
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