"After considerable thought and deliberation I have decided to make a major change in my life: I am going to close my hedge fund. I have several reasons for no longer wishing to run a short-only fund as I have for the past 12 years. ...

A future goal of mine, when I set up the fund in 1996 -- as I attempted to step aside from the madness -- was to return to the long side of the business at some point in time when I felt that investors had become more rational regarding risk and stocks offered a more favorable risk/reward proposition. I considered this option very briefly in 2002 after the stock bubble imploded, but the cleansing process was postponed due to the burgeoning real-estate bubble.

Second, though I think that the stock market still has unfinished business on the downside, I believe that 2009 is the year to prepare for a return to managing money in a more balanced fashion, with longs (and some shorts), as there are currently plenty of interesting ideas that appear to offer a margin of safety. On the flipside, compelling opportunities on the short side are not as abundant as they were just a few months ago (though there still are plenty.) The "value restoration project," to quote Jim Grant, has been brought about by the consequences of disastrous Fed policies and the madness of the crowd, both of which have concerned me for the last 15 or so years.