don't kid yourself, get real

[LeonPhelps]

Quote from illiquid:

I really don't know if this is necessarily true, it's two different games being played -- those who trade for opm/with opm in mind, vs those who trade their own account. In ET people often assume that they are exactly the same. But certain time frames and edges exploited will only work on a small scale, which is fine in itself, but realize the limitations.

I know it's scary, but some must face the fact that all they've learned and applied for making good profits over the years may be completely useless to anyone else outside of his own trading account -- relatively speaking.

True, very true. You are talking about scalability.

But what if an individual does has a profitable system and it is scalable?

The point I am trying to make is that there obviously is a whole more than performance to obtain and successfully manage OPM. The door looks to be closed rather tight for those on the outside. Platitudes mentioning "gold" aren't too helpful.

I have yet to hear any specific ideas on how someone with successful ideas transition their personal trading success to actually managing OPM.

 

[chewbacca]

So whats the truth:

1. There's tons of money awaiting good traders to manage?

or

2. No record sells itself?


Its so amazing how outright frauds like VN have a 10 figure net worth whereas there are probably way better traders than him out there getting by on low 6 figure years.

 

[illiquid]

Quote from LeonPhelps:

True, very true. You are talking about scalability.

It's not just scalability at issue here. I am also talking about longevity. Collect enough opm in the right markets, and you can ride a multi-year bull or bear trend with some leverage and perhaps retire comfortably off basically one single call.

On the other hand, individual traders trading their own funds are usually not experienced enough (at least I wasn't) the first time around to realize that our so-called edge may just be a matter of unique market circumstances, so there is far more risk for a rags-to-riches-to-rags scenario here. Perhaps if an individual record can show consistent returns via methods that take full advantage of a variety of market conditions? It may be ironically harder to sell the performance to others, vs the run-of-the-mill, one-off permabull/bear who's stumbled upon convenient times.

 

[xtrhvydty]

remember that fund managers don't have near the incentive we do to make 50%+ returns. If you were making a $3Mil salary with 25% returns, why fix it? Also managing $300 million is very different to managing $50k. 100% in 6 months on a $50k account is not uncommon for experienced retail traders in options or futures.