Fund managers vs Traders

[Jack o'Clubs]

I'd heard of that... that the strategies IB prop traders use have very little (if any) to do with what the public understands as trading.

Would you be able to elaborate a little on quant stat and index arbitrage?
Have been wondering for a while.

A few different things going on there. First, the edge that IB prop desks have is information flow, otherwise known as cheating. The Volcker Rule is long overdue and is a reason why most banks have been closing down or spinning off their prop desks. Of course how much of the same activity has just resurfaced under the guise of ordinary flow trading is a moot point.

Index arbitrage comes in various forms, but essentially uses algorithms to make sure that the value of an index never drifts too far away from the value of its component parts, or that index futures remain linked to the underlying 'spot' index. There are countless other quant strategies, where I work is fundamentals based, so we have everything from country economic models which take hundreds of inputs to work out when a particularly market or currency looks cheap or expensive, to quite clever algorithms that looks at previous market cycles, disassemble individual stock performances during them, work out what drove them (balance sheet strength, ability to protect margins, revenue growth?) and then reapply them to the current universe of stocks under consideration to come up with winners and losers for different scenarios. They all vary, but the thing that links them is that once the programs are written, back and forward tested, there is no subjectivity involved.

 

[scose-no-doubt]

There are countless other quant strategies, where I work is fundamentals based, so we have everything from country economic models which take hundreds of inputs to work out when a particularly market or currency looks cheap or expensive, to quite clever algorithms that looks at previous market cycles, disassemble individual stock performances during them, work out what drove them (balance sheet strength, ability to protect margins, revenue growth?) and then reapply them to the current universe of stocks under consideration to come up with winners and losers for different scenarios. They all vary, but the thing that links them is that once the programs are written, back and forward tested, there is no subjectivity involved.

I'm creaaaaming! more info please!

 

[chinabean]

I think there probably needs to be a distinction between what types of fund managers we are talking about? Mutual, Private Equity, Traditional Asset Managers or Hedge Fund Managers.


Also, I disagree that the reason prop desks are successful is purely because of information advantage. For a start, a lot of those guys are ridiculously smart (hence why people often talk about "brain drain" into finance) but also the real advantage they have is size. You can either leverage your position so that instead of picking up 1m from your carry trade, you make 100m. Second, you can force them market to go where you think people will start to feel pain and trigger their stops. Perfect example was USDJPY just after the Japan earthquake. There was a news release that G7 finance ministers were going to have a tele conference...... anyone with half a brain knew what that meant, co-ordinated intervention was a virtual shoe-in. However, and this is the kicker, USDJPY was trading just below 80 and everyone knew there was stops around in the next 50-100 pips down. So you have a nice little situation where you know that USDJPY is very likely to rally actually not rally sky-rocket once intervention starts. What happens? During the last hour of NY trade someone with serious size agressively sells USDJPY triggers all these stops, no doubt has buy orders directly below so not only have they just taken profit on their short, they are now long. Intervention annouced, CBs sell JPY, and voila.

Also, using size to their advantage is often what you will find funds like Renaissance doing, anyone in the industry knows this.

The other thing you have to consider is what are they trading? They might be trading AUDJPY but they are using FX swaps or CCY swaps, they could be trading the curve but using IR swaps. Hell, i know people that have put on £10bn SONIA trades or JPY2T (yep trillion) TONAR trades..........Your girlfriend might tell you size doesn't matter (well at least mine says that hahaha ) but in markets, size matters and it matters a lot.

FYI information advantage doesn't just come from knowing the right people or front running but from rigorous research. Read "the big short" (awesome book) and I'm sure you'll agree.


Anyway, back to the point of the post, if we're talking about hedge funds and in particular macro fund managers then there often is no distinction between trader and fund manager. Think Alan Howard (Brevan Howard), Michael Platt (Bluecrest) and you should (but maybe do not) realise that these guys were all prop traders at banks that were so successful that their reputation allowed them to set-up and grow multi-billion $ hedge funds. In my book, people like James Simons whilst amazingly successful are not traders as they do not trade, I bet old Jimmy hasn't put on a trade in the last 10 years. Their funds are often completely systematic and either fully automated or have execution traders. And believe me, it's not just your simple price data a'la tick data, they may look at all kinds of exotic correlations to give them an edge (think sun spots, that kind of thing!).

So....... if you are talking about success then the Howard and Platt (I'm trying to stay with British HFs!) are way more successful than say Peter Lynch in purely monetary terms......... particularly when you consider how quickly they have built their net worth.....

p.s. you can probably consider Ray Dalio a trader considering that is how he started his professional financial life!!!!! Trader -> £120bn hedge fund.................

 

[chibiks]

OP has some great points. trading is hard business and only a little more than a handful are able to make money consistently and beat the index. I personally think it is best to combine trading with interest/ dividend income to have consistent returns and more chances of success.

 

[Sidekicker]

Curious.

Why are there no famous traders on the scale of a Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch or Ben Graham?

In the end, the market only respects ROI.

Presumably if you're able to work from home and scalp for a living, and you aren't a multi-millionaire, then odds are your ROI has to be higher than any fundamental gurus'?

Also, banks, hedge funds, asset management houses would KILL for anyone able to consistently beat the index. If trading was so easy, and you could consistently outperform the index, then why aren't more traders making the headlines?

I read about people like Ed Seykota. I can't figure out why, if his ROI is real, he isn't currently being harrassed by long queues of hedge funds willing to pay him tens of millions a month?

It's the amount of money involved that makes a difference.
Fund managers, apart from mostly being terrible a trading, are just shifting stock and taking commissions, but they also have to steer a large amount of money in one go they can't click a finger and be in and out of trades every 5 minutes with that amount of money.

 

[ulot79]

Curious.

Why are there no famous traders on the scale of a Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch or Ben Graham?

In the end, the market only respects ROI.

Warren Buffet is an investor and not a trader, there is a difference.