Pro or Amateur?

[luckyd1976]

13 Pros in here

1 Options Neutral Market
1 COT trader w/Options

 

[wackypete2]

Pro, sry I have to ask?

By the definitions of pro vs amateur on this thread then, no. Trading is not my sole source of income, never has been, although it can be if that's the direction I want to go. I have been trading for about 25 (yikes!) years, and I was on a trading desk of a commercial bank many many moons ago trading mortgage securities to very large investors/banks/mutual funds etc...no retail. I block traded up to $100 million at a time way back when.

tbh, I would never consider myself a pro anyway with my current trading and set up. Money is great but I'm just a humble trader.

Peter

 

[luckyd1976]

tbh, I would never consider myself a pro anyway with my current trading and set up. Money is great but I'm just a humble trader.

Peter

Just curious thanks for the reply. You're right Money's not everything.

 

[caswerty]

one of the things which may set a pro apart from an amateur is yield rather than money. if one trader makes 100k a year profit it has all the appearance of looking better than another trader who makes say 5k a year profit. however if the first trader has a pot size of £1M and the second trader a pot size of 10k then it shows that the second trader is producing a 50% yield whereas the guy with the large pot is only making a 10% yield. i think that the big financial firms would be more interested in hiring the guy with the best annual yield.

 

[Ultimate-Forex]

one of the things which may set a pro apart from an amateur is yield rather than money. if one trader makes 100k a year profit it has all the appearance of looking better than another trader who makes say 5k a year profit. however if the first trader has a pot size of £1M and the second trader a pot size of 10k then it shows that the second trader is producing a 50% yield whereas the guy with the large pot is only making a 10% yield. i think that the big financial firms would be more interested in hiring the guy with the best annual yield.

I wish they do the same.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trading is not gambling.
http://www.myfxbook.com/members/ultimateForex

 

[wackypete2]

one of the things which may set a pro apart from an amateur is yield rather than money. if one trader makes 100k a year profit it has all the appearance of looking better than another trader who makes say 5k a year profit. however if the first trader has a pot size of £1M and the second trader a pot size of 10k then it shows that the second trader is producing a 50% yield whereas the guy with the large pot is only making a 10% yield. i think that the big financial firms would be more interested in hiring the guy with the best annual yield.

Highest yield with lowest risk is what you would think the large financial firms are looking for, but generally, we see them taking enormously outrageous risk to make a buck. Hedgefund failure rate (ie: professional money managers) is not much better than the retail trader failure rate.


Peter

 

[wackypete2]

Please provide factual evidence to support that statement Peter [the hedge fund bit, out of curiosity of course].

Here's a link to a forbes article from last year. The numbers shown in the article are eye-opening.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/18/hedge-fund-failures-business-wall-street-funds.html

another link
http://www.sharpeinvesting.com/2008/08/top-four-causes-of-hedge-fund-collapses.html

The psychological stress between the two amounts of money is also completely unaccounted for in that insight. Plus various other influences.

Yes, I agree. The immense pressure to get big results can make even the best money managers make bad decisions.

Also, something I didn't account for are failures due to massive withdraws. In those cases of course the managers are not at fault. Still, these are lousy odds for people who are investing money with "professionals". I'd prefer to blow up my account on my own and likely learn something than have someone else do it for me while I scratch my head wondering WTF happened!!

Peter

 

[luckyd1976]

http://www.sharpeinvesting.com/2008/08/top-four-causes-of-hedge-fund-collapses.html

Interesting article.