Who's the Better Trader?

RedManPlus · Mar 18, 2006

There is ** no information ** in the post...
From which one can infer "who is the better trader".

One can speculate who is likely the better "money manager" in terms of overall strategy:

Trader A makes risky, naked directional bets and 90% of these guys go out of business eventually.
You don't want to be anywhere proximate when they clean up his mess.

Trader B is likely managing a properly hedged portolio and a candidate to be viewed seriously in the long-term.

rm+

RedManPlus · Mar 18, 2006

Quote from Aaron:

Thanks, Grob and Formika. I agree. Our current 8% standard deviation of monthly returns is a lot more comfortable than the 16% we targeted during 2004 when we had the 50% drawdown. I sleep better at night without hundreds and hundreds of contracts on and earlier this month I even took my first vacation since starting Schindler Trading.

We're up 22% for 2006 so far and with our lower volatility I can already start to feel good about this probably being a profitable year. A friend joked to me tonight saying I should just put our money in a 9-month CD for the rest of the year and come back in January.

Over the upcoming months you can follow Schindler Trading's performance <a href="http://www.schindlertrading.com/index.php?page=performance">here</a> and see if we make some more money and have a whopper of a year or if we lose what we've already made and have a down year.

By the way, here is what an equity curve with a 50% drawdown followed by a 126% runup looks like... Does anyone else know of any recoveries from such a large drawdown? Until I lived it, I wouldn't have thought it was possible.

<IMG SRC="http://www.schindlertrading.com/include/content/chart20.gif" border="0">

Aaron Schindler
Schindler Trading

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.
FUTURES TRADING IS SPECULATIVE AND INVOLVES A HIGH DEGREE OF RISK.

Not impressive.
A 25% annualized return...
With volatility roughly 10 times the S&P.

I'm producing an 19% annualized return (after my 30% fee)...
With volatility of about 1/4 of the S&P...
And max draw down last 5 years of 2.5%.

Leveraging up by 30-40% easily matches your return.
So you are actually ** publically posting **...
Reward adjusted investment performance with volatility 30 times greater than mine...
And at least 10 times greater than any talented hedger would experience.

Your point?

rm+

ktm · Mar 18, 2006

...and the name of your fund?

Quote from RedManPlus:

Not impressive.
A 25% annualized return...
With volatility roughly 10 times the S&P.

I'm producing an 19% annualized return (after my 30% fee)...
With volatility of about 1/4 of the S&P...
And max draw down last 5 years of 2.5%.

Leveraging up by 30-40% easily matches your return.
So you are actually ** publically posting **...
Reward adjusted investment performance with volatility 30 times greater than mine...
And at least 10 times greater than any talented hedger would experience.

Your point?

rm+

Free Thinker · Mar 18, 2006

Quote from RedManPlus:

I'm producing an 19% annualized return (after my 30% fee)...
With volatility of about 1/4 of the S&P...
And max draw down last 5 years of 2.5%.

how. what is your style?

Maverick74 · Mar 18, 2006

Quote from RedManPlus:

Not impressive.
A 25% annualized return...
With volatility roughly 10 times the S&P.

I'm producing an 19% annualized return (after my 30% fee)...
With volatility of about 1/4 of the S&P...
And max draw down last 5 years of 2.5%.

Leveraging up by 30-40% easily matches your return.
So you are actually ** publicly posting **...
Reward adjusted investment performance with volatility 30 times greater than mine...
And at least 10 times greater than any talented hedger would experience.

Your point?

rm+

If you are not going to make your returns public, your chest pounding is pointless. As far as I'm concerned, as long as your fund is nameless, it doesn't exist.

Don't you know, everyone on ET runs a hedge fund with 50% returns, 2% drawdowns and volatility 1/5th of the SP. As far as ET standards goes, you are in the lower percentile. Better go back to the drawing board.

As far anyone else that wants to attack Aaron, please provide a url to your fund's site as well. Aaron has made his numbers available to everyone on ET, both the good and the bad.

As of today, I can't think of another ET member that has done that. Hmm.

martys · Mar 18, 2006

Do trader A and B use the same leverage? Then trader B can "theoretically" increase his leverage.

I also suspected that trader A and B is the same person

Buy1Sell2 · Mar 18, 2006

Quote from RedManPlus:

Not impressive.
A 25% annualized return...
With volatility roughly 10 times the S&P.

I'm producing an 19% annualized return (after my 30% fee)...
With volatility of about 1/4 of the S&P...
And max draw down last 5 years of 2.5%.

Leveraging up by 30-40% easily matches your return.
So you are actually ** publically posting **...
Reward adjusted investment performance with volatility 30 times greater than mine...
And at least 10 times greater than any talented hedger would experience.

Your point?

rm+

false

ktm · Mar 19, 2006

I guess I am in the minority, but I have to favor the 35% return.

Sure, it's only one year. We don't have the strategies or the circumstances of either manager so it really is too little data on which to base much. At the end of the day, what are we all shooting for? I thought the score was kept by who made the most money - the highest return after fees, etc? Sure we want the highest return with the lowest risk, but how do you quantify the risk taken by looking at a drawdown? Maybe the 25% guy was lucky (for the time being, or has been lucky for 10 years.) If we extrapolate these returns out 10 years and say these two average 35% and 25% per annum, the 35% crowd will have a lot more $$$. Starting with 100K - after the 10th year, the 35% account would have just over 2M, while the 25% account would have 930K.

Would those guys who are a mil short be bragging about how they have lower drawdowns? I guess I don't wholeheartedly agree with the fact that a past drawdown equates to risk. I think too little is known about how the drawdown occurred and whether it could be repeated. Was this a fundamental stock guy and he had a core position where the company lied? Was this a premium writer who adjusted his strategy to prevent a repeat? Did market behavior change for a very short period of time? I just think there are too many variables to try and assign risk to past drawdowns.

RedManPlus · Mar 20, 2006

My recent 6 years of Unit Value vs Benchmarks look like this...
But I go back to 1995... with Audited Financials since 1998...
Because I was a member of NASD 1998-2005.
Last year I terminated and moved to IB Canada...
Because was tired of being harassed by brain dead beaurocrats.

http://www.pathcom.com/~gzt/nav.gif

It's a ** private ** Limited Partnership based in Toronto...
And my web site is also private.

As one can see...
I am an ** obsessive hedger **.

Just pointing out to the guy...
That his hedging is highly sub-optimal... if he's hedging at all...
Or maybe it's very hard to hedge whatever he's trading.

Regardless...
The guy has a lot of room optimize...
And should be MUCH more self-critical for his own good.

rm+

RealForexTrades · Mar 20, 2006

My vote would be for "C", the guy who never made the list.

If "C" finished a 300 day trading year up 8,892.16% with a max draw down of 9%, would he be merely the winner, or a paradigm shifter?

My vote is for paradigm shift. But, of course â that would be impossible, right.

Just a thought - lol.

BTW - at this level, do you think he'd still want the job of "Hedge Fund Manager", or would he be out doing his own thing with his own set of portfolios?

My guess is that he'd want to go out and do some "shifting" in his own space. Being his own boss, maybe.