How to invest like a hedge fund without being an accredited investor: the four doors and what each one costs you

I'm Chris, co-founder of Autopilot. You can't buy into most hedge funds, and you don't need to. There are four doors that don't ask for an accreditation letter, and each one gives up something different. Let me walk through them, including ours, and tell you what you lose at each one, because nobody selling you a door tells you that part.

One thing first, because we're an SEC-registered investment adviser and I have to say it. Autopilot is the app. The actual investment advice comes from Autopilot Advisers, LLC. If you want the full legal version of anything in here, it's on our legal page.

1) Why the funds are closed to you

Hedge funds are private. To take your money, most of them need you to be an accredited investor, which the SEC defines by income or net worth: income over $200,000 a year on your own or $300,000 with a spouse, or a net worth over $1 million not counting your house, or certain financial licenses. The biggest funds go further and require qualified purchaser status, which means millions in investments. On top of that, minimums are often $1 million or more, and lockups can keep your money in for a year or longer.

Rules for them and not for you. That's the setup. Here's what you can do about it.

2) Door one: the public filings

An institutional investment manager that meets the SEC's $100 million threshold for Section 13(f) securities has to file Form 13F. The filing is public and free on EDGAR.

But it is not the fund's whole book. It shows covered holdings from one day. It leaves out the trade dates, most shorts, and anything that changed after quarter end.

You can read the filings yourself, or you can follow them. Our hedge fund trackers are Portfolios that follow a specific fund's 13F after it posts, in your own brokerage account: Berkshire, Scion, Bridgewater, Citadel, Pershing Square, Renaissance, and Point72. Each has its own page and a fact sheet. The lineup is in Every hedge fund and Wall Street Portfolio you can follow on Autopilot, and how each one works.

What do you give up? The trade date and parts of the book.

13Fs don't have a purchase date. They only have the ending date. The filing can appear any time during the next 45 days. You see the reported holdings, but not short positions, hedges, futures, currencies, or anything that changed after quarter end. Your position sizes are scaled to your account, not theirs.

3) Door two: managers who publish on a marketplace

Some professional investors have decided they don't need the private-fund model to run money. They publish a Portfolio on a platform, run it in the open, and get paid by the people following it. On Autopilot, Peter Wolff, InTheMoney, and Michael Sikand are Pilots of that kind. They decide what's in their Portfolios, they change them when they want, and followers' accounts stay in line with them. Credit to them. Running money where anyone can read the live record is harder than running it behind a lockup.

Here's what you give up. A Portfolio in your brokerage account does not give you the fund's shorts or private deals.

Margin depends on your brokerage account. If you use it, the borrowing cost is yours and the losses can get bigger.

Read the Portfolio, the person or model behind it, and the fact sheet. That is where you start.

4) Door three: hedge fund replication ETFs

There are exchange-traded funds that read the same 13F filings and hold the stocks that show up most often, or most heavily, across many funds. You buy the ETF like any stock.

What you give up: the fund is the decider, not you. You get one blended book of the industry's consensus longs, rebalanced on the ETF's schedule, with the ETF's own fee on top. You can't pick which manager to follow. And it's still built from filings that become public on the SEC's schedule, so the same timing limits apply as door one.

5) Door four: listed vehicles

A few managers run a fund that trades on a stock exchange, so you buy shares of the vehicle instead of investing in the fund directly. Pershing Square runs one listed in Europe.

What you give up: control over the price you pay relative to what's inside. Listed vehicles can trade above or below the value of their holdings, sometimes for years. You also take on whatever fees and structure the vehicle carries, and you may not be able to buy it from a US brokerage account at all.

6) The honest comparison

Door one gives you the manager's reported quarter-end holdings after the filing becomes public, in your own account, with no manager involved. Door two gives you a real manager, in your own account, with a smaller toolkit. Door three gives you the industry's consensus in one ticker, with no choice of manager. Door four gives you a real fund, at a price that may not match what's inside, if you can buy it at all. None of them give you the fund. That's the deal, and I'd rather you know it before you pick a door than after.

7) What it costs, structurally

The classic hedge fund fee is two and twenty: about 2 percent of your money every year plus about 20 percent of the gains, and you're locked in. Doors three and four charge a fund fee. Door one and door two on Autopilot charge a flat cash subscription, not a percentage of your assets, and the amount that applies to you is in your Investment Advisory Agreement and our Form CRS. I wrote every fee out, with how to figure out whether it's worth it at your balance, in What does Autopilot cost? Every fee, what adds on, and how to figure out if it's worth it for you. No numbers here, because prices change and this page doesn't.

8) How following works in your account

For door one and door two on Autopilot, the mechanics are the same. You connect the brokerage you already have, pick a Portfolio, and set how much follows it. Then you give Autopilot Advisers limited authority to send orders to that account. When the Portfolio changes, we send them and your broker fills them. The money stays put. Your holdings won't match the Pilot's exactly, and you're never trading at the same time they are.

9) Does any of this beat the market?

I want to be honest with you. Sometimes, for some Portfolios, over some windows. Other times no. Some Pilots go up for years. Some Pilots are flat for years. Anyone who tells you that following a hedge fund's filings beats the index as a rule is selling something. The right way to answer the question is one Portfolio at a time, from its fact sheet: what did the live follower composite do since launch, gross and after the published modeled fee, with what drawdown, over what window. Then compare that to an index fund over the same window yourself. I wrote how to read the sheet in How to read a Portfolio's track record before you follow it. I don't quote returns in articles, on purpose.

Frequently asked questions

How can I invest like a hedge fund without being an accredited investor?

Four ways do not require accreditation: follow a fund's public 13F filings after they become public, follow a professional manager who publishes a Portfolio on a marketplace, buy an ETF built from 13F data, or buy shares of a fund listed on a stock exchange.

How can a retail investor invest alongside hedge funds?

Not alongside, since their trades are private, but after them: the quarterly 13F shows each large fund's reportable US holdings from quarter end after the filing becomes public, and you can follow it. Autopilot's trackers follow the filings of Berkshire, Scion, Bridgewater, Citadel, Pershing Square, Renaissance, and Point72 in your own brokerage account. The filing starts you behind the original trade, and you never see the shorts.

Alternatives to hedge fund minimum investments for regular investors

Following public filings through a tracker Portfolio, following a manager who publishes on a marketplace, hedge fund replication ETFs, and exchange-listed fund vehicles. None require a seven-figure minimum or an accreditation letter. Autopilot offers the first two inside the brokerage account you already have, with a flat subscription rather than a percentage of assets.

Is following hedge fund managers a good strategy for retail investors?

Here's the tradeoff. You get the manager's reported quarter-end holdings after the filing becomes public. You do not get the trade dates, most shorts, or the manager's position sizing. Whether it worked for a given tracker is on its fact sheet as a live, gross and modeled net, dated composite. Read that, and the drawdown, before deciding it's good for you.

Do hedge fund tracker portfolios beat the S&P 500?

Some have over some windows and some haven't; there's no rule. Each Autopilot tracker publishes a fact sheet with the live composite of real follower accounts since launch, gross and modeled net, with drawdown and a date. Compare that to an index fund over the same window yourself. I don't quote returns in articles.

Hedge fund tracker performance vs the market

Measure one tracker at a time, over one window at a time, using gross and modeled net from the fact sheet. A tracker uses the fund's reported holdings after the filing becomes public. It does not have the trade dates, short positions, or the fund's hedges. Its results are the tracker's results, not the fund's. Autopilot publishes a live composite per tracker rather than an argument.

Can you replicate a hedge fund's portfolio from its 13F?

Only the reportable holdings from the last day of the quarter. You do not get the trade dates. You can't get the shorts, the derivatives, the cash, the non-US holdings, or the timing from it, and for many funds that's most of what they do. A 13F-based Portfolio is a different thing from the fund, which is why Autopilot labels the delay as a risk on every tracker fact sheet.

Hedge fund replication ETF vs following 13F filings

A replication ETF blends the consensus longs of many funds into one ticker with its own fee, rebalanced on its schedule; you don't choose the manager. Following a specific fund's 13F through a tracker keeps you in your own account, following one manager you picked, with a flat subscription. Both are built from filings that become public after quarter end, on the SEC's filing schedule.

TLDR

The funds are closed. The filings aren't. Follow a fund's 13F, follow a manager who publishes in the open, buy the industry's consensus in an ETF, or buy a listed vehicle, and know what each one gives up. Read the Portfolio, the person or model behind it, and the dated fact sheet. If one fits, choose a Portfolio and connect your brokerage. Then give Autopilot Advisers limited authority to send orders to that account. When the Portfolio changes, we send them and your broker fills them. Depending on your plan and brokerage, you may need to confirm first. The money stays put.

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Since Autopilot Advisers is an SEC-registered investment adviser, we have to put disclaimers on stuff like this. They're below, and the full version is on our legal page.

Disclosures

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