My unusual story - Canadian looking for US HF opportunities

Hello everyone,

I'm a Canadian working at a small L/S fund in Toronto and want to make the move to the US. I'd appreciate any advice you guys may have.

First a bit of background: I majored in Chemistry and was a solid C student more interested in drinking beer with my buddies than studying for exams. This was mostly due to my immaturity and total lack of understanding of what I eventually wanted to do with my life.

I had a group of friends who played online poker for a living, so I followed suit, but got bored fairly quickly due to the repetitive nature of the pursuit. I transitioned to trading stocks for my own account in early 2009 (good timing), essentially day trading my account and more than quadrupled my capital (from ~$20k to ~$90k) in about six months. I became convinced that I was “the shit” and deservedly blew up shortly thereafter, exhibiting every mental bias and fallacy known to man. In hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened, as I am now fairly confident that you don’t know yourself or the market until you get hammered so hard that the force induces a rewiring of your natural human tendencies.

I had found my calling and decided that I was going to learn to beat the market on a consistent risk-adjusted basis whatever it took, and make a career in the hedge fund industry. To cut a long story short, after a lot of effort and self-study, a stint at RBC and passing the CFA curriculum, I networked my way into a start-up North American focused L/S equity fund by attending a CFA continuing education seminar, and offering my services for free to the PM as a way to gain experience. I was subsequently brought on full time and have been here for just over 20 months. I've learned a lot and our returns have been great, but I think it’s time to take the next step in pursuit of my goal of breaking into Long/Short in the US.

So, fellow monkeys, how do you guys think I should go about finding this inefficiency in the labor market? A PM at my firm suggested I try to go through the sell side equity sales people, which certainly makes sense, the problem is that many of the US sales people I deal with cover funds based here in Canada. I’m also starting to network but have been really slacking on that front in the past little while, mostly due to the fact that I’m dead set against staying in Toronto. I’m just starting out my search and am fairly confident I’ll come up with something, but I’d greatly appreciate any advice you monkeys may have for someone in my situation.

And if any of you guys have any questions for me, I’d be more than happy to provide what advice I can.