How many of you trade on your own?

Anybody here follow the market and trade frequently on personal accounts? If so, are you taking from your HF experiences, or are you self studying by reading books and watching trading interviews/podcasts?

Also, how much of an advantage do you think a BB terminal or alternatives provide you in comparison to the generic trader?

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Most professional traders can't actively trade in their PAs because of compliance.

 
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To elaborate, here's how things work at my firm.

  1. What do you want to trade? Anything that's not a diversified (>30 instruments) ETF, I have to clear with compliance.
  2. Submit the request to compliance, and wait for them to get back to you. This can take anywhere between a day to a month.
  3. Trade! Oh wait, whatever news I wanted to trade is now in the distant past. 

It even goes to the extent where I'm required to link my brokerage account to some software that compliance uses so they can keep track of what I buy automatically. And it's not just me - my partner, who I don't even live or work with, has to do the same thing.

 

thanks for the context. ever heard of conflicts of interest (ie family at public cos) being an issue?

 

Yep, all these things are potential issues. Generally every quarter or so we have to sit through a pre-recorded video where a local lawyer will describe the enforcement actions taken by the regulator to instil the fear of God into you. Subsequently you'll have to fill in an extremely comprehensive declaration form listing all potential conflicts of interests / financial debt / etc. Highly invasive to be fair but considering my contract has a clause allowing searching of my desk and person at any time in the office I'm hardly surprised.

 

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