With everyone talking about the pros & cons of what PTF is discussing, why is there no sincere mention of becoming a Register Investment Advisor in a more traditional form from you nay-sayers?
What I mean by this is an Investment Advisor/RIA [or a CTA] manages money for their clients' individual accounts, typically requesting trades as block transactions under one master account. In this form, there is obviously added risk to the advisor because he must take on the added responsibility of being a legal fiduciary. That means that he/she would be responsible for putting the clients needs before his own/own firm's. You would document this with an risk tolerance analysis and investment plan for each client which is a headache to be sure, but it allows development of client relations skills as well as helping to acquire credibility within your community. It also gives your the ability to take on institution clients, such as state retirement funds, all without ever heading to wall street or begging GS for one internship.
The amount of paperwork, disclosure, and compliance required typically [though this is changing] exceed that of a hedge fund and through normal operations is the perfect prep to starting a hedge fund as it requires the same skill set, except when you start your fund, you loose some of the individual client paperwork requirements [because you're no longer managing individual client investment objectives] and also get to take a portion of the profits rather than only your management fee. The key thing here is that you would develop your track record, grow a client base, and master many of the pitfalls that come with being a money manager.
It would seem to me, that if you want to start a Hedge Fund early on, you know that you want to be a money manager right? But we all know that the easiest way into the production side of financial services is as an Advisor [which almost no one on this forum wants to do -- at least for any real period of time] right? Why not start where the two intersect ?
You will be a far more disciplined hedge fund manager if you have experience managing other peoples money right from the outset than you would as a prop trading or trading for yourself. You won't need to make any philosophy adjustment to dealing with clients because you already will have developed your "beside manor". And -- this is the big one -- if you start off as an Investment Advisor, you will have the ability to MARKET yourself/business openly to a pretty broad array of potential clients. Once you have done well, start a separate entity that will be your hedge fund and then YOU select who you want to offer the opportunity from your current client base, asking them to refer you to like minded individuals who would be interested in such an opportunity. Meanwhile, you bring on one or more newer advisors to taking on managing the RIA practice while you manage the hedge fund... Presto! Diversification of income, vertical integration of strategy, track record development & you will have serious funds to carry you through before you actually start taking a salary from the fees of the Hedge Fund.
So for you guys that have such great pedigrees, why is it that none of you could come up with this, but the former thug turned computer geek with only 3 years from a state school can map this out so well? Seriously?
I think people on this site need to start defining/redefining what success meanings, recognizing that implementation of strategy to achieve or exceed the desired goal without too great a cost is all it really defines.
And BTW, I commend PTF for creating this thread. Also, you guys who went the CTA route instead of the RIA -- which essentially are the same just have differing regulatory bodies & securities instruments -- might have an advantage over RIA's that are exclusively equities based. I will be re-examining it well.
My $0.02.
DJ