I still think that fund failures or sudden significant degradations in performance are "human factors" related, more than methodology/system breakdowns.
Trading OPM in a fund is like "running through a minefield".....there is a hyper vigilant minute to minute psychological awareness needed to keep all your "plates spinning on sticks". At any moment, you or your collective team can let their guard down from a psychological human factors standpoint, which can START a disaster.
Fund failures are exactly like plane crashes imo....many times there are a string of "bad decisions" while in a weakened psychological state that turn into a point of no proper return event (pilot error). These human factors can be pride, ego, exhaustion, confusion, poor communications, over or under confidence, etc.
The inability to CATCH the first few bad decisions in a thought process can turn into a string of bad decisions, which has a very high probability of creating a disastrous outcome (think of how quick a few bad decisions strung together will affect you running through that exciting minefield).
The inability to recognize the initial "bad decisions", and then many times later, the lack of action after the realization of those first bad decisions is the death card. From here on it is all downhill, if there is not immediate proper and corrective actions during the initial bad decisions period.
We all know human nature extremely well, but we fail many times to RESPECT the power of the negative aspects of our human nature as it can work against us. When humans are indecisive or lacking proper response during the realization of a bad decision string, it usually leads to a very undesirable and UNINTENDED result.
So my message to you all as traders is this....have a blast running through that exciting market minefield, but stay hyper vigilant to your "decision strings" so you don't get BLOWN UP!!! :eek:
