It's a Porsche. No, it's a Hedge Fund

Anon928FromTheDarkSide said:

There are people out there who make millions trading and they must have learned to do it somewhere, but where... and does anyone here actually make a living from trading... and if so, how?

Click to expand...

Aha.

Good question.

Allow me to introduce myself:

My name is Porsche.

Ferdinand Porsche.

I am making my first post on these lovely boards for the explicit purpose of answering your very pertinent question, in order to lead you out from despondency and the dark side where you currently reside, out into the light side, where, you shall see, the beacon of hope, purpose and destiny sparkles brightly.

My family, you see, are the proud owners of a hedge fund. What's that you say ?

Yes yes, of course we also produce sports cars, but, rest assured, that's just a side line to our core business, making billions running our hedge fund.

So, to answer your question, 'tis indeed possible, you just need to order it up from the Universe, and it shall be delivered.

Alternatively, if that's not your cup of tea, deliverance is just one short application away:

http://www.porsche.com/uk/aboutporsche/jobs/

Bloody marvelous ;-)

what the advert meant to say.......

Err, following that line of argumentation, what'd this signify then, from a Freudian perspective ?



Or, to really get to the heart of things, this :

@ BSD: is it true that it's your family or you've just got the same surname :?:

LOL !

My name is unfortunately not Porsche, I was just trying to make a pretty poor joke around the story, that's all ;-)

Story itself is true enough though:

"Porsche's uncertain ride

Financial Times

By Paul Betts

Published: November 13 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 13 2007 02:00

Porsche has a lot to thank Holger Härter for. The slightly scruffy 51-year-old, nearly always seen with stubble, hardly seems the type to be chief financial officer of one of the world's most prominent and successful family-run companies.

But Mr Härter has run the German sports carmaker in ways that are very un-family-like. In the same way that secretive traders in Connecticut or London have built up powerful hedge funds, so this trained economist from rural Germany has carved out a niche for himself as a financial wizard sitting in Stuttgart.

So far, he has been spectacularly successful, whether it was first investing in euro-dollar hedges when the exchange rate was at $0.90, only to cash in as the greenback weakened, or now by capitalising on Porsche's control of Volkswagen.

Nobody is quite sure how Porsche made €3.6bn ($5.2bn) from share options last year - against just €1bn from its so-called "core" carmaking business - but it looks essentially like it bet on VW's shares rising. As these have risen from €40 to €180 in the two years in which Porsche has held them, it has not been a bad bet. It has also helped finance the increase in Porsche's stake in VW to 31 per cent.

The only question is what happens now that credit markets are souring and VW looks very expensive. Hedge funds invested in just one asset often come undone. Porsche will still be in the carmaking business, but it may find there is a downside to financial wizardry too."
FT.com / Companies / Autos - Porsche's uncertain ride

I like this part:

"...It does look like a hedge fund," said Stephen Cheet-ham, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

...a Porsche spokesman said: "We make money from hedging and building cars. The difference is that hedge funds don't make cars the last time I checked."..."

;-)