The term “hedge fund” can actually be somewhat misleading – not many hedge funds actually hedge their investments. Hedging is a strategy that reduces the risk of a business transaction. Hedge funds use many different investment strategies, but they often engage in high-risk trading because their goal is to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible, which is different from, say, an index mutual fund that just tries to outperform an index (for example the S&P500). What really distinguishes hedge funds is how hedge fund managers get paid: management fee plus a performance fee.