Quote from One:
in the hedge fund situation, the manager takes a percentage of losses reflecting the percentage of the fund he owns, which is often quite small, versus the prop arrangements where the trader is responsible for all or most of the losses from his contribution. Quite different in that respect it seems.
In addition, private equity and hedge funds do not rely on commission income from traders, but on the strategies they deploy in the markets. In fact, private equity is most commonly understood as taking large stakes in at-risk companies and reforming them. Both do not require a large supply of traders to execute their strategies, but rather on smart talent who get paid for their ingenuity.
You will notice in a previous thread Yachtman, a recent ET member joining a new company, mentions that he puts down 50k capital, pays .01 a share and receives 90% of his <i>own</i> portfolio net. In addition, Yachtman's strategy seems to be intraday only, and I have never heard of an intraday only hedgefund or private equity firm. Nor have a heard of one where the <i>traders</i> put themselves at risk in addition to the managers.
Now, my previous comment questioning if this firm can truly be defined as private equity was deleted as being off topic, so I hope this one will be considered more relevant to the conversation with further explanation. I'd rather not start a new thread topic to ask the rest of the community if portfolio trading firms are in fact prop firms.
Beyond that, I'd state that if a firm has a successful strategy of managing wide portfolios across markets, more power to them. Very difficult to pull that off, and deserves respect if so. It might even help to buy an advertising slot here on ET and introduce the methodology and its expectancy, as frequency would magnify the gains. I'm sure questions about personal risk would be foremost in any potential trader's mind, of course.