blah

Are you still in undergrad?

What impression of your trading abilities/results did you give him during your conversation?

Still an ugrad. Just pitched him a trade idea, did not talk about my ability or results at all - briefly mentioned the broker I use and the type of systematic strategy I employ, which I guess is a misnomer because I have mentally abandoned the strategy due to the losses.

I presume he's made the request as undergrads don't typically run systematic macro strategies but the moment he sees the string of red I'm sure he'd think I have the worst discipline & risk management which frankly isn't the case.

I'm actually embarrassed since my track record is just abysmal and he's a well known trader so his standards will be high. I'm still inclined to refuse as I just can't see myself sending him that stuff... Just tried forcing myself to attach it in an email and was unable to do so...

I'm inclined to agree with Simple As.....

Send it to him, and mention that you use the account to test strategies rather than make money or something- say its purpose is educational rather than monetary. As long as the idea you pitched him today isn't losing you a ton of money in the account, I think this would be ok.

I would say that at this point its probably more about him trying to assess your analytical abilities (reasoning for doing x and y etc.) and see whether or not your thesis made sense to begin with. also agree with simple as.

Vagabond, thank you for the valuable advice - I really do wish I had understood that earlier.

Given that he mentioned that he would understand if I did not wish to share my trading records, I view the payoff profile as follows: At the end of the day, there is no upside regardless of whether I email my records or politely decline. However, if I opt to send my abysmal records it will undoubtedly attract immense scorn, especially in light of the fact that I burnt my mother's money - I really have no place on the buy-side. If I politely decline on grounds of privacy due to it being a joint-account, at the very least I can invoke some doubt...

Moving forward, I will keep my mouth shut until I produce a track record worth talking about.

Let's review the facts as we've been presented them:

1. PM asked you about a personal account
2. You mentioned your strategy and broker, but not 'your account'
3. You had some huge and embarrassing losses in 'an account'
4. The account in question is your Mom's, thereby throwing into question the viability of said embarrassing returns
5. There has not been any mention of a paper based account as of yet

Given this information, it would be extraordinarily difficult to not give account information to them. You could make some excuse that the account is muddled because it contains part of your strategy and part of what your Mom wanted to do. That's a bad path to go down though, in my opinion. They can always ask you to separate each trade that's relevant, if they really wanted to. Any trade that's not the buying/selling of a mutual fund or a household name equity will be doubtful that it's your Mom's. Plus, it's lying, which isn't so great.

I don't think the bad return is a deal killer though, necessarily. If you can present what you've learned and display your intellectual curiosity, you have a shot as a college student. How you show your intellectual curiosity will be the biggest determining factor, in my opinion. Very few firms will expect (or even want) you to be a decision maker at this stage in the game. I've read some of your posts and consider you a pretty curious person, FWIW.

I wouldn't send it, but when not sending it I'd say why (ie, like you did above - you had this strategy and it didn't work, you were testing it, and then made some other dumb mistakes with the EM currencies etc). I'd also note that the drawdowns look pretty significant, and then go on to say how it was a good learning experience because of xyz and how you never want to repeat it; you could finish up by saying if he still wants to see the statement then you can still send it over, but he won't. You still probably won't get a job out of this guy, but he probably won't badmouth you for it (and may respect your honesty), and on top of that you dont have that document out there floating around.

Not sending with no comment makes you look sketchy

OP, best thing you can do (imo) is to send it, with a brief explanation of what went wrong and what you learned from it- to show that you actually learned from your mistakes and have grown as an investor/trader as a result.

SirTradesaLot, xqtrack and notthehospitalER - thank you for advice, I shall spend some more time reflecting and will reply in the morning...

I would send it and include a brief note explaining what went wrong. If you have a good winning % but have been slaughtered by a few huge drawdowns or anything like that, you could humbly mention that alongside your assessment of what went wrong. You could also say something like "since then, I've been backtesting my systematic strategies under more varied conditions and staying away from illiquid EM currency pairs where wide spreads effectively impose implicit transactions costs that make certain strategies perform erratically in certain conditions." Or anything so it sounds like you learned how to modify your approach in light of your experience in an intelligent way.

Honestly, not sending it at all would look worse than sending a bad track record, IMO. Put yourself in his shoes. If a college kid sends you a track record that shows some big mistakes but the kid seems intelligent and humble...you might think he has a bright future in the business. Bruce Kovner and Ray Dalio have both said they suffered drawdowns trading commodity futures in their younger days that nearly wiped them out entirely.

If the kid doesn't send you the trade record after talking about his strategy...this looks bad. You would assume, at a worst case, that he never had the account to begin with and was full of BS the entire time (or had a paper trading account). More likely, you risk the impression of being a kid who has an ego an unrealistic expectations...some combination of too much pride to show a mistake, and some delusion of an expectation that any successful trader has had reliably winning strategies since they were in college, as if it all came down to an endowment of natural talent that manifests itself anytime they sit in front of the screeen.

I think it depends on what you hope to get from the PM. If you're hoping to work for him or one of his colleauges as a discretionary macro trader then probably best not to send it, but then again not sending will also raise a red flag. If its anything else then send it, but qualify it as others have said. So I guess what I'm saying is might as well send it, it at least shows youre not lying about your PA and put in serious effort.

I'd bring it to the PM and say "Hey, I want to get better at this". Anything else looks like you're hiding something. Realistically, you want this guy to hire you for a markets oriented position and you suck at trading....you need to spin this and dance through the minefield of your ego if you want to stand a chance.

Per the preponderance of advice above, this is a no brainer to send over. the fact that you're even trying to run an automated strategy while in college is impressive. realistically the guy probably just wants to confirm that you weren't lying about running said strategy... he is likely to end the conversation with you if you don't send what he has asked for.

also tons of great hedge fund managers started out by nuking friend/family money early in their career.

front paged lol...

I feel like he would expect the worst if you don't send it.

OP, what have you done/decided to do?

^ Short myself.

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What happened? He laughed in your face? Who cares

Good username btw

Not sure if I hate or love Victor Niederhoffer but he definitely is a baller in his own right

To those I haven't personally PM'd, I feel I owe you guys a quick update.

I followed xqtrack's advice and I didn't send it. Many of the legendary traders that I greatly admire also endured insane losses during exceptionally volatile times, however it was only deemed acceptable after they attained 'market wizard' status. I have come to the realization that your track record means everything and I have no intention of exposing these deep wounds just yet. My actions may indicate that I probably lack a pair but in the end I decided to go with my gut. I haven't been knocked out of the game, which I guess is a good thing, but I am still very disappointed in myself. Over the past week I have also made a serious commitment to become a pure discretionary trader moving forward and it feels liberating to be fully in control of all aspects of the trade cycle.