So stressed out hedge funders are doing yoga. We learned this from the front page of Thursday morning's Wall Street Journal, which made us long for the return of the late, great "A-Hed." In its place, we were treated Thursday to a social "trend" story that Slate's Jack Shafer would surely classify as "bogus." The premise is that more and more hedgies and finance-types are turning to yoga to relieve the stress of today's turbulent markets. But the only evidence presented to support this trend is that "studios and private teachers in New York and London report increasing demand from financiers." Neither the increase nor the demand is ever quantified.
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Instead, we learn that Paul Tudor Jones and William Gross both do yoga. Fine, but that hardly supports the notion of a recent uptick in the discipline's popularity among moneymen; indeed, Gross spoke to The New York Times about his yoga practice back in 2005 when markets were still humming along. We also learn that the star of the piece's lede, hedge fund manager Michael Karsch, also started doing yoga three years ago, long before today's market turbulence set in. Meanwhile, strangely absent from the story is Daniel Loeb, an activist investor who is often described as an avid yoga fan.
OK, enough nit-picking. The WSJ's yoga piece may be silly, but the paper is only adhering to the time-honored tradition of reporting on what the moneyed-class does to reduce stress, especially when times get rough. The New York Times, for one, recently gave us "Therapists to the Elite," as part of its seamlessly endless "Age of Riches" series. In it, shrinks lament the challenges of treating Masters of the Universe, who "think they know my business better than I do." The therapists in the piece are so stressed out, it's only a matter of time before the papers tell us that they are doing yoga too. - Yvette Kantrow
