Hey guys, I think I can help out with some answers to these questions.
First some background, although you posted my Linkedin profile so you should know it ;-)
I started trading in the mid 80's as a kid in the UK. I started work in the City (London) in '87 at Schroders. Initially was in the back office, worked my way up, assistant to fund manager, then the trading desk. Later moved to what was then Kemper later Scudder, as head of trading desk, trading global equities and fx. Left there in '99 to go to the sell side at Lehman, sales trading pan-european equities to hedge funds and institutions, and later became a prop trader there. Finished there in 2004, and moved to the US a year later. Took a year or two out, reading, studying, developing trading systems, with the intention of eventually managing money. Wasn't ready and no opportunities as the market broke, so took a job with a friend's brokerage from late 2008-2012 whilst still working on stuff in the background, and in 2013 decided to finally quit and go out on my own.
Figured I would just start with a blog, and start sharing ideas and telling my story. Sharing what I thought, what I've learned in markets all my life, what's worked for me, and tried to demonstrate in real time with real trades how it can work. Had a lot of success at first. 2013 was obviously a great year for a momentum strategy on stocks. Beyond that, not so much.
I was fortunate enough that during 2013 some people approached me and asked if I ever ran money could they invest me. So late 2014 I decided to form two separate companies. An RIA to manage client money, and a publishing company to run the blog/subscription service. I have to keep the two very separate because as an RIA I'm registered and regulated.
To answer some specifics
@billyjoerob @karoshiman @OddTrader
I don't equal-weight, I equal-risk. I wanted to show on the blog the performance in R-multiples to better demonstrate that, but figured many people might not understand it. I use position sizing strategies as made popular by Van Tharp. I emphasize in my work the importance of position sizing. The fact that two traders could have the exact same winning system, with the same trades, and same trade outcomes, but could have entirely different trading results because of how they might size each position differently. It's for that reason I never showed the percentage return of an overall portfolio on my blog because if I did people would then think they could get the same if they traded the same stocks, entries, and exits. They won't. It will depend on their position size. I figured it would be better to just show what each and every trade did, and let them work out what could be achieved depending on their risk tolerance. Everyone's is different. At the time I also had to be careful talking about performance as I was becoming registered. To be honest, I personally think I showed more on that page than I ever saw any other traders out there showing. No one can accuse me of only showing winning trades. I lose a lot of the time, and I talk about it.
Shortly after setting up my RIA I then set up a subscriber service on Marketfy in late 2014. I hadn't had any subscribers prior to that. My blog was just that, a blog. I did everything for free for 18 months. I was just sharing what I thought was good helpful content, and I got a lot of people that seemed to appreciate it. They started following me, and invited me to do podcasts etc. I think people liked that I was transparent with the results, accessible, honest, and not anonymous. 2013 to mid-2014 was great, but my timing in setting up those business late 2014 couldn't have been worse. As you know, we had an 18-month rangebound market, and for an intermediate-term momentum guy that was a killer. Performance has sucked. And you'll be pleased to know, since the service was hosted on Marketfy it has an actual portfolio, so it also showed a portfolio return not just the individual trades.
In 2015 it was in line with the market, and YTD it's down 8% which is horrible. I haven't made money in the last two years, but I haven't lost a lot either. We probably have very different timeframes and perspectives. Fortunately my clients do too. You should also know I run a highly-concentrated portfolio, typically 12-15 names, but occasionally it can be as few as 8-10, so it has a very different return profile to the S&P. I have losing trades, losing months, losing years, but so do winning systems, and long-term successful traders and investors.
Re sub numbers, I never had anywhere near that number, I got off to a good start when the business started and it tailed off after that with the performance as you might expect. I've heard some blogger/RIA types out there have services with 100-150 ppl, but it's a high turnover business and it's more suited to short-term trading.
And in case you think I'm being opaque, you should know my blog is currently down because I'm having it redeveloped and moving the sub service from Marketfy to host it myself in the coming weeks.
With regards to Fundseeder, I looked into it as it could help with the RIA biz but they couldn't answer my questions about whether the performance would be GIPS-compliant, which suggests the answer is no, so I wasn't interested.
Re being a 'guru', I can assure you I'm NOT. All I try to do is share good content with people and help them not make the mistakes I made throughout the years at great cost. I've discovered everything I know the hard way and I try to save others time, and they seem to appreciate it. I've never claimed to have all the answers, and certainly never claimed to be a guru or promise untold riches. In fact I often say I'm always learning. Because truthfully we all are. And besides, what guru do you know who shows trades and has losing years? I find it amusing that you guys seem to think because someone has a lot of followers it makes them a guru. What should I do? Tell everyone to stop following me so I don't get a bad reputation?
I hope that answers some of your questions. Best to your trading.
