Interview with a Full Time Trader and CTA

[Gotcha]

Sam would have loved to mention numbers and solicit additional funds,

Thanks for the reply, but its too bad you didn't allow these numbers to be shared.

If he manages 30M, and 75% is in day trading, this means 22m. He mentioned that he stops if he loses 1% of the account, so he can sometimes lose 2m in one day? He doesn't mention how often this happens of course.

Here is the thing though. If he is only trading the ES, as mentioned, and you say he could manage more than 30M, then how many contracts is he pushing through? These numbers would be quite large. Anyone trading futures and able to consistently make several points a day has the holy grail in their hands.

This is why everything so far has to be taken with a grain of salt. I still see no incentive for him to require access to funds. Let me link to this post here.

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...ontracts-per-trade.323728/page-6#post-4705217

If we are to believe these numbers, and no reason not to, it would be interesting to compare to Sam's. At some point, Sam should not need any access to capital and should only be trading his own account. This makes me wonder what Sam's performance metrics are.

 

[_eug_]

What if the assets under management are funds from family and friends?

If you had a consistent winning system and a track record I bet there would be a lot of people in your life interested in investing. Managing other people's money can be a form of giving back.

 

[They]

If he manages 30M, and 75% is in day trading, this means 22m. He mentioned that he stops if he loses 1% of the account, so he can sometimes lose 2m in one day? He doesn't mention how often this happens of course.

Last time I checked 1% of 22M is $220K.

 

[Gotcha]

Last time I checked 1% of 22M is $220K.

Oppss... totally correct of course. I will leave it as is though in order to highlight my stupidity. Still though, if all you're doing is trading ES, you must be trading lots of contracts to hit this number.

 

[Quiet1]

His performance history is on his own website if you take the time to look.

 

[Gotcha]

His performance history is on his own website if you take the time to look.

If this is the website you are referring to, then this chart says it all.

https://www.soaringpelican.com/new-page-1/

I'm sorry but doubling my $1000 from 2010 until now is sub par performance.

I don't see why he is trading futures with this kind of performance. I know its too easy to say just buy the SPY and walk away, but this is actually the case. I expect a guy who has 100k in their trading account to double that several times in a year if he is good, and perhaps managing more money makes this difficult

Now granted, having millions of AUM makes things harder, but it should still be fairly easy to swing 100-200 contracts in the ES, and that is just for day trading. If you're swing trading, well then, loading up on thousands of contracts should be easy, especially with 30M in margin available.

No offense whatsoever to Sam, and he deserves praise for putting himself out there, but these metrics are just not that impressive for trading futures.

 

[MattZ]

If this is the website you are referring to, then this chart says it all.

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...ab0/1520533682571/chart+edit.png?format=1000w

https://www.soaringpelican.com/new-page-1/

I'm sorry but doubling my $1000 from 2010 until now is sub par performance.

I don't see why he is trading futures with this kind of performance. I know its too easy to say just buy the SPY and walk away, but this is actually the case. I expect a guy who has 100k in their trading account to double that several times in a year if he is good.

Now granted, having millions of AUM makes things harder, but it should still be fairly easy to swing 100-200 contracts in the ES, and that is just for day trading. If you're swing trading, well then, loading up on thousands of contracts should be easy, especially with 30M in margin available.

No offense whatsoever to Sam, and he deserves praise for putting himself out there, but there metrics are just not that impressive for trading futures.

No offense taken. I hope you find a coach and advice that will meet your expectations.

 

[Gotcha]

No offense taken. I hope you find a coach and advice that will meet your expectations.

Thanks very much Matt for allowing me to express my views and responding kindly.

 

[Quiet1]

If this is the website you are referring to, then this chart says it all.

https://www.soaringpelican.com/new-page-1/

I'm sorry but doubling my $1000 from 2010 until now is sub par performance.

I don't see why he is trading futures with this kind of performance. I know its too easy to say just buy the SPY and walk away, but this is actually the case. I expect a guy who has 100k in their trading account to double that several times in a year if he is good, and perhaps managing more money makes this difficult

Now granted, having millions of AUM makes things harder, but it should still be fairly easy to swing 100-200 contracts in the ES, and that is just for day trading. If you're swing trading, well then, loading up on thousands of contracts should be easy, especially with 30M in margin available.

No offense whatsoever to Sam, and he deserves praise for putting himself out there, but these metrics are just not that impressive for trading futures.

Sounds like you don't understand the industry. You have to assume that people who have enough money to give to CTAs already have as much exposure to their local and foreign stockmarkets and bond markets and property markets etc as they want. But they still have money and they are smart enough to know that the one free lunch in all of investing is diversification.

Look at where this guy made and lost his money in the last year or so compared to the s&p. That's right he didn't do great in 2017 but had great returns in Feb 2018 (for example).

No one believes you can make huge returns with high sharpe year after year because it's very very rare. Much better to assemble a great portfolio yourself of say buy and hold stocks etc plus some CTA who's returns are inversely correlated to your main assets. Bingo!

This is the truth the entire hedge fund industry is built on. They are not even trying to do the thing you suggest.

 

[MattZ]

Thanks very much Matt for allowing me to express my views and responding kindly.

Every input helps, and I respect your view.

We service managed, and self-directed customers and they are entirely different customers. They have different expectations, and a CTA has a whole set of fiduciary duties as far as how they use leverage. Some on Sam's program use 1:4 leverage, but that, of course, increases the risk/reward and potential drawdown (there is a substantial risk of loss in futures trading. past performance is not indicative of future results). Let's end it on that. If someone wants to find out more detail on this program, they can contact me.

Finally, I acknowledge that some of the information here is basic. But, I feel that even the basic rules slip a trader's mind even though they heard it 1000 times. There are no intelligent mistakes in trading. They are just mistakes. Sometimes it's the basic stuff that saves you from committing significant errors.