NEW YORK, Nov 8 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Eyeball the value of hedge fund assets since 1990, and it looks a lot like a classic S-curve. A modest increase in October took the total above a new $4 trillion threshold, according to research firm HFR. But persistent high fees and underperformance make it look like a business reaching a limit. Though the archetypal 2-and-20 fee structure is history, the typical hedgie boss still rakes in roughly 1.4% a year on assets and 16% of gains, HFR reckons. So investors in hedge funds are paying more from the get-go than they would for, say, exchange-traded funds like State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR S&P 500 ETF where annual expenses run under 0.1%. Hedge fund bosses would quibble about the comparison with a U.S. stock-market index. But while individual funds and categories periodically trounce the benchmark, the outperformance seen in the 1990s and early 2000s is history. Over the past 10 years, an investor in a typical hedge fund wouldn’t even have doubled their money; in the S&P 500 Index, their pot would have more than quadrupled. (By Richard Beales) On Twitter http://twitter.com/breakingviewsCapital Calls - More concise insights on global finance: SoftBank buyback may ease pain of quarterly loss read more Abrdn mulls a well-aimed return to dealmaking read more KKR’s $2 bln hydrogen bet is too cloudy read more Canada Goose’s extra insulation read more