Capital Available for Traders

We are thrilled to introduce you to a soft launch of the RAPA Cap Intro™ web portal, the culmination of a decade long dream where we match emerging trading talent with investment capital. To assist our community with assessing trader’s talent we have developed a proprietary RAPA Score™ with our team of 3 Ph.D.’s whose expertise range across: trading, investments, economics, mathematics, computer science and psychology. Using our quantitative approach for calculating a traders risk adjusted returns we are able to publish a dynamic RAPA Leaderboard™ where the best traders are able to attract the attention of the RAPA community and raise capital from our existing investor base. In designing our scoring system we have studied some of the largest CTA and hedge fund databases and together with our behavioural finance background we have incorporated some psychological and statistical scoring metrics as part of our total RAPA Score™.

Members of the community will have access to a broad suite of analytical tools to measure their individual performance or consider their relative performance via the RAPA Leaderboard™. However, RAPA Cap Intro™, is far more than a profit and loss tool for traders. In collaboration with a number of peak performance psychologists and drawing on the team’s personal trading experience we have seamlessly integrated a “thought journal” & social media profiles with the trader’s Profit and Loss database, as represented by the RAPA Wall™ profile.

In conclusion we are traders and our principals are traders with a long track record of seeding emerging manager talent, one having gone on to manage more than a $1 billion. We are open to all types of strategies and asset classes. We have launched with Interactive Brokers compatibility and will look to support other platforms (e.g. MT4) in the next few months.

We welcome all comments and ideas.

Regards

Michael

 

This is a very important concept and is reflective of your understanding that talent can arise from the willing.

What are the typical profit sharing arrangements ?

And again, congratulations on your endeavor.

 

looks awesome gj

 

A few comments/questions after reviewing your site.

1. I see no information on costs, fees, or profit sharing arrangements.
2. Does IB reporting to you include account balances?
3. I assume that IB reporting to you includes account names as well as account numbers? Are those names then posted to your site as the member name along with the U number?
4. Just my opinion, but providing you with account numbers, reporting access, etc., could be a hurdle if this information is available to other members.
5. You have a big focus on the benefits of sharing information, views, thoughts, etc. Is that really something a trader wants to post publicly considering that he/she is looking to attract capital? ("Man, I really screwed up today big time. Took a Xanax and feel a little better.")

Obviously a lot of work put into this, and an interesting concept. But IMHO, privacy issues need some tweaking. Give a user the choice to display a username, and delete the posting of account numbers, and you'll become more trader friendly.

 

is there ever a point when money is flowing from me to you

 

Thanks, 2% management and 20% performance fee (no hurdle) will be charged on funds, this will be shared 50:50 with RAPA (Pty) Ltd.
Performance fees will naturally be subject to a high water mark.

 

No.

However money, i.e. fees will flow to the trader. Management fees monthly, and performance fees quarterly.

 

Questions from Lindq in bold.

A few comments/questions after reviewing your site.

1. I see no information on costs, fees, or profit sharing arrangements.

We are still learning our way around all this web development, we are quants and had to learn how to build a website with the complexity of a growing size. A couple of hours ago we put up a new page called "Notice Board" which will be a way for us to communicate with the community.

2. Does IB reporting to you include account balances?

Yes the size of the account is factored into our scoring algorithm. Also I believe it is important for potential investors to see how big or small the account the trader is managing.

3. I assume that IB reporting to you includes account names as well as account numbers? Are those names then posted to your site as the member name along with the U number?

Yes we can see in the IB report the name and U number. The U number is a way for our database to know whether to accept the XML file or not.

4. Just my opinion, but providing you with account numbers, reporting access, etc., could be a hurdle if this information is available to other members.

There is a privacy setting in the profile section which hides your trades and portfolio composition from the world if you so choose.
I agree with you that we can change the way we are showing the U number to all concerned, I am going to change that so that all that the community will see is a strategy name. Thanks for the comment.

5. You have a big focus on the benefits of sharing information, views, thoughts, etc. Is that really something a trader wants to post publicly considering that he/she is looking to attract capital? ("Man, I really screwed up today big time. Took a Xanax and feel a little better.")

I screw up often and I put that down in my journal, it is up to me to decide whether I want to share that information by placing it on my Wall. It is useful to look back and see if there are patterns when I screw up (there usually are).

Of course there is a fine line between sharing too much information, some of it might be off putting to investors. IMHO, successful trading is marginal meaning that you are right or winning only 50-55% of the time, so that means the rest of the time you are losing. People who understand traders know you screw up, so sharing with them insights you have learned from your screw up can be helpful.

The Wall is a very personal thing and each person will have a different approach. I like to be very open. I have always been open about a position I am in or bias I am carrying towards the market or position.

Obviously a lot of work put into this, and an interesting concept. But IMHO, privacy issues need some tweaking. Give a user the choice to display a username, and delete the posting of account numbers, and you'll become more trader friendly.

Thanks for the comments.

 

what if the traders are trading prop - ie not their own account. do they submit their reports from the prop /private firm?

 

Yes provided they are not breaching any rules of the prop firm. To be considered on the leaderboard the performance data needs to be current. In time we will become very strict with this as it is fairest for everyone to have a current leaderboard as close as possible (1 day lag) due to time zones and IB reporting.