Money
Here’s 48 Hedge Fund Terms Every Investor Should Know
Here’s 48 Hedge Fund Terms Every Investor Should Know
For many investors, hedge funds appear to be shrouded in mystery.
There’s a practical reason for this. The best hedge funds are extremely careful about protecting their ideas and tactics, because they provide an important competitive advantage for making profits. An example that illustrates the paranoia around this was described in Flash Boys by Michael Lewis, where he noted that at the ultra-secretive firm Citadel, it took five ID card swipes for an employee to simply start her day.
There’s also a psychological reason for the secrecy – which is that hedge funds want to appear incredibly complex and sophisticated, so that accredited investors will part with their money in order to get exposure to them. While hedge fund tactics are often intricate and extremely lucrative, understanding how they work is not as impenetrable as it may seem.
Hedge Fund Terms Investors Should Know
Today’s infographic comes to use from StocksToTrade, and it captures 48 terms that can serve as an entry point for any investor into the mysterious world of hedge funds.
It covers essential ideas around how hedge funds make their bets, such as: arbitrage, hedging, pairs trading, alpha, and beta. The infographic also looks at hedge fund terms around measuring performance and risk, as well as words that describe fee structures and payouts.
Interestingly enough, we live during a time when modern technology has also allowed retail investors more access to these types of tactics than ever before. Take a look at this infographic on alternative investments, which gives examples of ETFs and mutual funds that mimic traditional hedge fund strategies such as long/short equity, merger arbitrage, or managed futures.
Want to learn more about how hedge funds work?
This post on WallStreetMojo outlines nine popular hedge fund strategies, or check out our favorite book on global macro investing: Inside the House of Money by Steven Drobny.
Money
Charted: Retirement Age by Country
We chart current and effective retirement ages for 45 countries, revealing some stark regional differences.

Charted: Retirement Age by Country
The retirement landscape can look completely different depending on what country you’re in. And charting the retirement age by country reveals a lot of differences in the the makeup of a labor force, both for economic and cultural reasons.
This graphic delves into the current and effective retirement ages across 45 nations in 2020, based on comprehensive data from the OECD 2021 report.
Defining Retirement Ages
Before we dive into the numbers, let’s clarify the measurements used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):
- The current retirement age is the age at which individuals can retire without penalty to pension after completing a full career starting from age 22.
- The effective retirement age refers to the average age of exit from the labor force for workers aged 40 years or more.
Many countries have seen workers effectively retire earlier or later than the current retirement age. This variance can arise due to a multitude in factors including differences in career start ages, some industries offering earlier retirements or benefits for later commitments, or countries facilitating different workforce exits due to market demands and policies.
Some people also choose to retire early due to personal reasons or a lack of available work, receiving a smaller pension or in some cases forgoing it entirely. Likewise, some people choose to stay employed if they are able to find work.
Retirement Age by Country in 2020
Here’s a snapshot of the current and effective retirement ages by country in 2020:
Country | Retirement age (Current) | Retirement age (Effective) | Retirement age (Women, Effective) |
---|---|---|---|
🇦🇹 Austria | 65 | 62 | 61 |
🇧🇪 Belgium | 65 | 61 | 60 |
🇨🇦 Canada | 65 | 64 | 63 |
🇨🇱 Chile | 65 | 65 | 61 |
🇨🇴 Colombia | 62 | 67 | 60 |
🇨🇷 Costa Rica | 62 | 67 | 62 |
🇨🇿 Czech Republic | 64 | 63 | 62 |
🇩🇰 Denmark | 66 | 64 | N/A |
🇪🇪 Estonia | 64 | 64 | 65 |
🇫🇮 Finland | 65 | 63 | 64 |
🇫🇷 France | 65 | 60 | 61 |
🇩🇪 Germany | 66 | 63 | N/A |
🇬🇷 Greece | 62 | 61 | 58 |
🇭🇺 Hungary | 65 | 62 | 60 |
🇮🇸 Iceland | 67 | 66 | 64 |
🇮🇪 Ireland | 66 | 64 | N/A |
🇮🇱 Israel | 67 | 65 | N/A |
🇮🇹 Italy | 62 | 62 | 61 |
🇯🇵 Japan | 65 | 68 | 67 |
🇰🇷 Korea, Republic of | 62 | 66 | 65 |
🇱🇻 Latvia | 64 | 66 | 65 |
🇱🇹 Lithuania | 64 | 63 | N/A |
🇱🇺 Luxembourg | 62 | 59 | 60 |
🇲🇽 Mexico | 65 | 66 | 63 |
🇳🇱 Netherlands | 66 | 64 | 63 |
🇳🇿 New Zealand | 65 | 68 | 66 |
🇳🇴 Norway | 67 | 65 | 63 |
🇵🇱 Poland | 65 | 62 | 60 |
🇵🇹 Portugal | 65 | 65 | 63 |
🇸🇰 Slovakia | 63 | 60 | N/A |
🇸🇮 Slovenia | 62 | 62 | 61 |
🇪🇸 Spain | 65 | 61 | 60 |
🇸🇪 Sweden | 65 | 66 | 65 |
🇨🇭 Switzerland | 65 | 65 | 64 |
🇹🇷 Türkiye | 52 | 61 | 59 |
🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 66 | 64 | 63 |
🇺🇸 United States | 66 | 65 | N/A |
🇪🇺 European Union (Average) | 64 | 63 | N/A |
🇦🇷 Argentina | 65 | 62 | 63 |
🇧🇷 Brazil | 62 | 62 | 59 |
🇨🇳 China (People's Republic of) | 60 | 66 | 61 |
🇮🇳 India | 58 | 67 | N/A |
🇮🇩 Indonesia | 57 | 69 | N/A |
🇷🇺 Russia | 62 | 62 | 60 |
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | 47 | 59 | N/A |
🇿🇦 South Africa | 60 | 60 | 56 |
Three countries had the highest current retirement age at 67 years, Iceland, Israel, and Norway, but all had slightly lower effective retirement ages on average. On the flip side, Saudi Arabia had the lowest current retirement age at only 47 years with full pension benefits. Only Türkiye at 52 years was close, and notably both had much higher effective retirement ages on average.
Discrepancies between different regions are clear across the board. Many Asian countries including China, India, and South Korea have official minimum retirement ages in the early 60s and late 50s, but see workers stay in the workforce well into their late 60s. Meanwhile, most European countries as well as the U.S. and Canada have more workers retire earlier than minimum retirement ages on average.
Almost all of the countries with measured effective retirement ages for women also saw them exit the workforce earlier than men. This can be the result of cultural gender norms, labor force participation rates, and even the setup of pension systems in different countries.
The five exceptions in the dataset where women retired later than men? Argentina, Estonia, Finland, France, and Luxembourg.
Looking to the Future
In 2023, France sparked controversy by raising its early retirement age by two years. This decision triggered widespread strikes and riots and ignited debates about the balance between economic sustainability and individual well-being.
Given aging demographics in many developed countries and a continued need for labor, this isn’t expected to be the only country to reassess retirement. The OECD projects a two-year increase in the average effective retirement age by the mid-2060s.
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