Difference Between AM and PM and Trading

Use search or google, dude.

PMs, research analysts, and traders work together to manage assets. Also, portfolio managER (the job) is different from portfolio manageMENT. The PM is the second most senior person at the fund I work for, and used to be both an analyst and a trader previously in his career.

CFP is very helpful for all of them, I suggest you check it out.

You have to realize that some Portfolio managers have control over more money than some HF managers do. You never hear someone referred to as an Asset Manager for good reason. Asset management is the term for the firms that have PM's that manage their specific subset of the fund. For example, the fund where I used to work had ~8b in assets and 4 PMs. Each of those guys ran a particular fund that had it's own particular strategy but still under the umbrella of AM.

I'm not going to make the distinction between those 2 and trading for the same reason I don't wipe other people's asses, they should be able to do it themselves.

HPMcG, I'd give you an SB if I had any to spare.

IBD,

No. Depends on the structure of the fund in question. As I said, I simplified things because there is alot to managing a fund that requires more detail than I either know or feel like discussing at the momenet. The reason why people don't fight over good PMs is because they still need to develop a name for themselves before they are considered "good", and even then, sometimes it's just one lucky trade that puts them on the map. Look at Michael Burry, he was an unknown that made a number of really good calls that were noticed by a number of bigger names like Vanguard, White Mountain Insurance Group and Joel Greenblat, the founder of Gotham Asset Management, before he started Scion in 2000. Jim Cramer started out as a stockberoker before moving onto running his own fund. Part of his startup capital came from clients he impressed while at Goldman, managing their money for them. At the end of the day, it's a matter of trust and a proven track record. Plus, why work for someone else if you're that damn good that you can run your own fund.

Happy,

The only reason why I said a PM is a subset of AM is because not all guys who manage money are Porfolio Managers. Look at the Wealth Management space. I know a slew of UHNW Financial Adivsors that do not do anything that even comes close to what a PM does and I know others with half of their book of business dedicated to discretionary management of funds - read: The Broker runs his own porfolio with his clients money using his own strategy (The Wealth Management version of what a Portfolio Manager does). Hey, look at the mutual fund space. That's all portfolio management in action. And yes, you are right. How much money is ran by the Fidelity/PIMCO/Vanguards of the world? How much money did Peter Lynch manage with the Magellian fund?

Frieds, spot on as usual. A note on the institutional side. The aforementioned firm had about 2b in institutional assets and the PM that ran that fund was a bit more constrained in what he could and couldn't do because of that.

ibdafuture, I think what you should take away from this is that AM is a field and PM is a title. While there are many ways to perform the functions and roles for which a PM is responsible, it is still a title and a job description. Frieds, made a great point about WM guys who run huge books (and I've talked about one here before that has an insane amount of capital at his disposal) so don't get hung up on being a PM. Look at the role not the words on your business card.