A Hedge Fund’s Loss Rattles Nerves

Enormous losses at Amaranth Advisors, one of the nation's largest hedge funds, resurrected worries yesterday that major bets by these secretive, unregulated investment partnerships could create widespread financial disruptions. The scale of Amaranth's losses -- and how quickly they appear to have mounted -- was the talk of Wall Street, as was speculation on how much the bet was leveraged, or made on borrowed money. Still, there were no signs of ripples on the financial markets as a result.