How would you market yourself if.... I average 4-8% per month

I'm assuming you want to lateral into trading? If so, network like a maniac with different desks and express your interest in it.

I don't get it - are you paper trading or trading for real?

If you are just paper trading, then try it for real and see how it goes. Believe me, the two things differ a lot because when it is real money that you are losing it is much harder to be cool about it and you end up making harsh decisions.

4-8% with 2x leverage?

The sounds like shit. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

I've done if for 7 months in a row. The point of this post is not to make myself look good. 7 months is not a huge time frame, but considering the variety of market action it show consistency.

I should be out right now, but I have spent 12 hours today paper trading. I spend 5 hours a day on average paper trading and obviously when the markets are open I trade my strategy with REAL money. The returns I have obtained are in real money base don the past 7 months (last 7 months, no drawdown)

I trade stocks with a beta of 2+.... I love to trade fcx, x, pcx, clf....bac when I am trading bad or when the market is just acting nuts.

THE PURPOSE of this post is to see what you all think I should do next? Reason being it is highly unlikely given market conditions, variety of market action and consecutive month returns that this is some black swan event.

What should my plan of attack be? Do I get my statements out and resume and knock on hedge funds doors? Should I stick with prop shops b/c my style lacks a portfolio management style that might be needed for hedge funds. Should I hang out with my alcoholic friends everyday and throw my computer out the window before I end up like livermore?

Thanks

I work at a hedge fund and we get people pitching their trading and investment ideas to us each week (unsolicited). You would be surprised how many claim to make 5% per month. If you want to pitch your approach to hedge funds and prop trading firms, be able to answer the following questions:

1. Is 4-8% gross trading results? I assume so, so what effect do trading costs and any other fees have on your net performance since it seems you trade intraday.

2. What market conditions are necessary for your trading strategy to work? You mentioned you trade specific stocks and sectors. Why these ones in particular? Is your approach expandable to other securities?

3. How much money can your trading strategy accommodate? Can you apply your strategy to only $2 million, $20 million, $200 million, etc. Be sure to be able to explain why.

4. Risk management is huge. You will get questions on your leverage and why you chose that amount. How does your strategy perform under different leverage scenarios? How do you get out of bad trades? What is your worst drawdown and time to recover from that?

5. Have you done any backtesting over multi-year periods? If so, how did your strategy perform in say 1999 or 2004 or 2008? There are strategies such as managed futures that did phenomenally in 2008 and have done terrible in the last year and a half. How does your strategy compare?

To be honest, I am skeptical of the likelihood of you being able to keep up your results over a sustained period of time with a significant AUM (several million). This is not a reflection of you, since I don't know you personally, but simply because if you are able to do what you say consistently, you will be one of the best traders in history. In the real world, investors would be thrilled to get 1% per month consistently over time.

If you are confident in your ability to execute your strategy, you should go after friends and family members' money first. Get a few hundred thousand and offer to manage it for free or at cost so you can establish a more significant track record with real money.

Thank you for your insight. This is the information/insight I was looking for. I agree that the results are very good and hard to believe however I am not trading a ton of money, just all my savings.

Once I have a longer track record these points I will highlight and starting pitching my ideas. I will probably end up at a prop shop trading my own money.

Thanks again!

I am curious why you want to go to a prop shop or hedge fund. It is obvious you have confidence in your strategy. If you could get $1 million under management, get 40% returns net of trading costs (at the low end of your stated returns) you are making $400,000 per year, say you do a typical 2/20 split, you are making $100,000 per year. If you trade $1 million at a prop shop or hedge fund you would make less than this.

This is a question that any firm considering employing you would ask. Why with such a good system would you give up the lion's share of the returns to someone else? To many it will seem that you lack trust in your trading model and want to offload the risk to another party. Most people like working for others because it mitigates their risk, if they blow up they lose someone else's money, not their own. If they have a high risk/reward mindset or are just confident or independent in nature, they strike out on their own.

I agree 100%. The truth of the matter is my only focus is trading, and refining my strategy and more importantly mastering my emotions and how I interact with the subset of stocks I trade. I have not really put any thought into where I will go or who will hire me until until now.

On top of this, I have not personally interacted with any traders other than 1 email with Dennis Gartman. So I really have no clue where to begin. The one thing I do know is I really enjoy trading with a passion, it is a game to me and I love it. I actually know 3 traders at 3 different hedge funds that I would be able to talk with, but I don't want to pursue these leads until the timing is right . I want another year of learning and study.

My goal is 10,000 hours of screen and study time. I think I am at the 4,000 mark and my tape reading is getting extremely good but only intraday. I can't stomach the risk of multi day with large positions. I take very small positions over night and to me it is like flipping a coin, bad odds...but intraday I can rip it.

Question for you if possible, are there traders that trade only 2-4 stocks because they know their 'personality' so well that they make money on them 80% of the time?

My stocks are fcx, clf, x, pcx They move heavy intraday....I think I could trade 60,000 shares a day in each stock and scalp .20-.50 per day with consistancy for a hedge fund....is this the type of equity trader they look for?

I work full time and have tons of distractions in sales (clients walking in my office, phone, boss etc) ....yet I still scalp .20-.40 per day on 1200 shares.