R1234-
What if any opinion do you have on the idea of bootstrapping it from the start and establishing a one person practice in terms of is it realistic, and how one would go about raising AUM? As I said, I do not have any audited track records and I'm not interested in running a 'fund'. I think there is a dearth of competent advisers when it comes to actually allocating assets and looking to unconventional classes of assets that are actually arguably prudent to invest in from a diversification and upside perspective, and in general of looking at the market and surveying the landscape from commodities to bonds to stocks to geopolitics. I'm not saying everybody ought to be trying to be the next 'big short' but it is way lopsided and insofar as one believes the government is there to prop up the market, that's its own argument to be long equities, but a lot of people I think are counting on way too much with their investments and don't appreciate the risks. A lot of people have earned their money in their career and even without great returns if they protect their wealth they should be setup for a solid retirement, and putting a ton of money they earned via their actual skillful trade, vs putting it at risk in a casino, isn't appealing. And I'm not saying the default is cash, because that is risky in its own right. A good company is a good company from an investment POV, and you try to buy at a perceived value price, but I'd rather in part certain companies' ships than ride out the dollar because even apolitically, fact is debt loads are enormous and portend more bailouts, more printing, and even if USD index looks good against other foreign fiat, it still isn't appreciating.
The best shot to me seems to be to get setup, get a physical location to add credibility, get at least some AUM going with acquaintances and friends of family maybe, and then word spreads and look to selectively advertise and differentiate my strategies vs the typical advisor, and it grows from there and at a point of 5 million sum charging 1.5%, that should be at least netting out to a living wage so to speak because with a one man practice, expenses per year are minimized. Fiduciaries/RIA isn't supposed to be like a fund. I don't want a hot hand reputation. I just want to be someone who helps people position and look for unique opportunities and be risk averse and do things like sell puts on things that look intriguing but not totally wanting to buy in. Things like that, and just to be there to help people as things can get bad in a hurry and a 2k handle on ES can become low 18s quickly. And CB ammo is not running high aside from paradrops of currency. I would not be telling people sell the farm in that flash crash few months ago, but warn them that probably getting into 1600s would confirm a strong chance that it isn't going to just bounce back, but rather go all the way down. There are a lot of EW folk and others who see 1k before 2.5k on ES. A lot is riding on what happens here either new ATH or break below Aug 24 low enough.
