Gunslinger

Two cowboys square off on a dusty street in the Old West. Gunslingers.

A group of Harvard business school graduates sit in a boardroom devising an aggressive plan of asset allocation. Another type of gunslinger.

In finance, the term refers to a fund manager who isn’t afraid of risks. The kind who would step out into the street against a rival ready to draw...at least metaphorically speaking.

Literally speaking, these managers take aggressive market positions, looking to maximize return rather than minimizing risk or optimizing opportunity. It can mean big wins when the gunslingers are right...and it can go south quickly when they're wrong. Just like their Old West namesakes, sometimes it ends with a bullet between the eyes (although maybe a bit more metaphorically).