How the hell did the idiots manage to lose money in a short fund in this market? That takes work.

Lost a bunch of my money on trying to time the market. Pretty much gave up on it by now.

how come they don't let you do this in horse racing?

When Boston hedge fund millionaire Jeffrey B. Larson visited a classroom of economics students at his Midwestern alma mater last year, he picked up a marker and diagrammed a low-risk strategy for maximizing profits when investing in a company's stocks and bonds.

The probability "of success was exceedingly high," remembered professor Karl Egge, who taught Larson in the late 1970s and invited him back to his class at Macalester College, in St. Paul.

And at the time, Larson's investment strategy was working -- a 16 percent return from June 2005 to June 2006, nearly double what stocks returned that period. But a month ago, Larson's supposedly seaworthy $3 billion hedge fund at Sowood Capital Management LP abruptly foundered in turbulent debt markets.

His loss of $1.6 billion of investors' money is the biggest hedge fund collapse this year. Much of it occurred during a few frantic days in July, when a meltdown in the subprime mortgage market triggered a shock wave that caused the values of many debt securities, such as those held by Sowood, to drop sharply. Larson suddenly did not have enough money to repay his lenders, and he was forced to dissolve the fund. He sold off the remnants and closed Sowood on July 30.

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/08/16/money_man_bet_wrong____and_lost_16b/