Hedge funds are safe?

Most REAL hedge funds are extremely unlikely to blow up. 50% drawdowns or worse are more common in the index fund and unhedged long only world. We rarely get to hear of the skilled funds that put up consistent performance with low risk vastly superior to other financial products. Mutual funds are a very poor as a "hedge fund substitute". Equity mutual funds have high risk as evidenced through steep drawdowns and high standard deviations of their returns.

For steady risk-adjusted performance, investors are better off with hedge fund managers skilled in generating returns in any market conditions. In contrast, most mutual funds have stayed below their high water marks for over 5 years and maintain almost 100% long only exposure to the market! Such RISKY exposure is simply unacceptable for risk averse investors now that superior products are available.