Manage retirement fund and compete with top shelf investor (9)
I believe the answer is:
supervise
'manage' is the definition.
(I know that manage can be written as supervise)
'with top shelf investor' is the wordplay.
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'top' becomes 'super' (I've seen this before).
'shelf investor' becomes 'vise' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'super' put next to 'vise' is 'SUPERVISE'.
'retirement fund and compete' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for supervise that I've seen before include "Oversee, superintend" , "Oversee, monitor" .)