Fundseeder - my experience
- Thread starter globalarbtrader
- Start date
No. This is the same strategy used by large CTA's; medium speed trend following with average holding period of a few weeks. Capacity is probably around the 50 billion mark. I'm not quite at that level.
If I had outside investment then I'd on the upside (a) possibly earn more money; and on the downside (b) have to put up with a lot of crap.
The problem is I don't need to earn enough money, I'm lucky enough to have plenty, and I'm happy with what I already have.
Having worked in the hedge fund industry, I'm fully aware of the stress involved with running other peoples money. I deliberately stopped doing that in 2013; I don't see why I'd want to go back to it, for a significantly lower income than what I used to earn (at least until my fund reached a certain scale, assuming it ever did - most small funds fail). In fact it's worse than that, because I'd have to deal with all the regulatory and other nonsense that comes with running your own fund, which as a PM in a large fund you are protected from (I think the regulations in the US, for offshore CTA's in particular, are much less onerous).
Of course there are some advantages to running your own fund rather than working in a large one; which I don't need to enumerate.
I think it's fair to say that I'm a bit different from the average person on this forum who is probably trying to make the journey in the other direction (retail punter to professional manager).
Mind you I would never say never. I would for example consider taking a deal where I was given the best of both worlds: as a portfolio manager in a large fund that worried about all the non trading admin and where I got a reasonable basic salary; but where I was allowed to run my own office remotely how I pleased. I did have quite advanced discussions with a large fund about doing this.
However they correctly recognised that I would be much more valuable working within the fund's office. I don't consider myself to have an edge or something nobody else can do. What I did was to similar to what they were already doing so there was no point creating a new sub fund. What I am good at (I think) is making a lot of small improvements (or removing errors to be more precise) to the basic CTA strategy. This is something I'm better off doing within a portfolio management team.
Alternatively I might be a good fit for someone running a multi strategy setup who wants to get into the trend following CTA space and add that particular string to their bow. I've had some approaches in that respect, but the guys running the fund weren't a good personal fit.
GAT
Cool. I've designed and developed my own ATS from scratch (I am a software engineer and a trader), and have read quite a few books on systematic trading. I look forward to reading your book.
Man, that's a long post....I kind of hate reading.
So -- what's the bottom line...you make 17.80% annually
So -- what's the bottom line...you make 17.80% annually
Man, that's a long post....I kind of hate reading.
So -- what's the bottom line...you make 17.80% annually
Just look at the pictures then
GAT
Your sarcastic reply is true -- that's what trading is; it's not so much about numbers and data....but rather just staring at pictures/graphs...and trying to decipher the meaning behind it.
I am a professional trader trading my own account, I love the idea of FundSeeder and was briefly a member, but a few issues led me to cancel my account.
The first is the privacy of trade data. Their User Agreement and Privacy Policy do not properly guarantee that FundSeeder will not sell, publish or distribute trade data in ways I do not like.
There is also no guarantee that trade data will be held in encrypted form and no clarification about which employees can access it and for what reasons.
There is therefore a risk that trade data will at some point end up in the wrong hands and be misused, especially if you truly have a unique, working strategy.
The execution here seems to be lacking otherwise as well. For several months nothing happened on the site. They did not send even a single email to their members. It appeared there was some personnel turnover and all development work on the site had stopped.
My attempts to get in touch with their customer service and CEO to discuss the issues I had were met with complete silence.
In protest I removed their rights to access my account. Unless there is evidence that people are actually getting funded via the site, I think I'll be quite slow to return.
The first is the privacy of trade data. Their User Agreement and Privacy Policy do not properly guarantee that FundSeeder will not sell, publish or distribute trade data in ways I do not like.
There is also no guarantee that trade data will be held in encrypted form and no clarification about which employees can access it and for what reasons.
There is therefore a risk that trade data will at some point end up in the wrong hands and be misused, especially if you truly have a unique, working strategy.
The execution here seems to be lacking otherwise as well. For several months nothing happened on the site. They did not send even a single email to their members. It appeared there was some personnel turnover and all development work on the site had stopped.
My attempts to get in touch with their customer service and CEO to discuss the issues I had were met with complete silence.
In protest I removed their rights to access my account. Unless there is evidence that people are actually getting funded via the site, I think I'll be quite slow to return.
FundSeeder is the result of the acquision of what used to be RapaCapIntro, of which I was a member. At that time, the service was well managed, and I got to know the CEO and the site developers/quants through email correspondence and some coloboration. Now that the ownership has changed, the quality of service (in particular member service) appears to have gone way down. My email inquiries about the improper import of data are yet to be addressed.
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Your sarcastic reply is true -- that's what trading is; it's not so much about numbers and data....but rather just staring at pictures/graphs...and trying to decipher the meaning behind it.
Sorry I didn't mean to be sarcastic - the pictures alone give you a good idea of what the site is like, hence my comment.
GAT
As far as trade data goes I don't think this is a big issue.
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index...opinions-useful-not-risk.294748/#post-4186893
I agree that the service level isn't great, although part of me feels I should acknowledge that we're getting this for free, so maybe expectations shouldn't be too high. The CEO has read this thread (he's contacted me on the back of it), so he'll be aware of your concerns.
GAT