Advertising. Schmadvertising. Bring it on hedgies.

The SEC has decided to lift the ban on hedge fund advertising. Financial pubs and assorted experts yawned.

While the ban lift removes a critical obstacle for hedgies to try to steal fundster lunches, talking and writing heads noted that hedge funds still have plenty of other challenges, like, um, performance issues, as noted in numerous articles by Bloomberg, like here, here, and here.

Mutual fund companies and hedge funds aren't competing for the same investors, however, says Robert Bramnik, a Chicago and NYC-based financial services partner at the law firm Duane Morris, a firm that specializes in securities, futures and derivatives market, including regulatory matters.

In an interview with MFWire, Bramnik said he doesn't believe the rule will have an "earth-shattering" effect on the mutual fund industry because investors are largely high net worth, and have to be qualified at a minimum as accredited investors. The objectives and needs of investors are also quite different.

"Part of the appeal of investing in hedge funds is the ability of those funds to change investment strategies and tactics in an instant -- in response to changing market conditions or at least their perception of changing market conditions -- and mutual funds are proscribed from making such swift changes," Bramnik said. "There's a wide delta between these two kinds of funds and the people and institutions that invest in them."

The development attracted the attention of many news outlets, including , MarketWatch, , Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal. 

Edited by: Casey Quinlan


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