I guess so, although fundseeder stopped me from sharing the performance details, which was daft because it was free publicity for them. I guess their compliance person got stressed out. The whole project seems to be moribund now anyway, the site still runs but nothing else happens. Well for a start, none of these things pay you enough to earn a living. Most conferences don't pay a speaking fee, in fact in many cases you are expected to cover your own expenses. In my entire life I've accepted a speaking fee once. Writing books pays a little, but even if you are moderately succesful when you add up the hours involved it's not much more than minimum wage, unless you are an outlier - a black swan if you will - like Taleb. To make money purely as a 'trading guru', you need do do other stuff like post incessantly on social media and sell training courses. I don't do that. Last financial year, which was fairly typical, my pre-tax income broke down as follows: 80% investment and trading 7% book royalties 13% university lecturing, industry consulting, and misc other stuff Why do this then? For different reasons. Personally, I do it purely because I am interested in this stuff and I like sharing my knowledge with other people. I could go down the route of doing that in a trading course, and I'd almost certainly make much more money, but I'm not interested in that. This obsession with seeing performance before you trust someone is a bit silly really. Of course, someone should actually be trading or have traded, rather than being a fake trader who actually makes all their money from a youtube channel or selling courses. But there is plenty of information that you can and should use to determine someones credibility. In fact, if someone boasts about their performance then that is usually a big red flag suggesteing that they are a online guru rather than a trader. When I was working for a fund, and I was interviewing new hires, did I ask them about their trading performance (or that of the fund they were working at). No, it was completely irrelevant. And anyone who started bragging about that, it would have been an immediate 'you're not hired' from me. I recently did some consulting for a new client; a prop trading firm that is looking to implement systematic strategies. Did they ask me about my performance? No. Did they ask to see ? Of course not. It was completely irrelevant. Rob
I don't know where you worked at and how your firm survived hiring people they did not care about how they performed but what you describe is some la la fantasy land and does not reflect reality at all. Everything in this business, everything, is performance based. Certainly everyone who is hired into this business is probed and background checked and asked about their past performance. Everyone who makes trading, risk managing, and investment decisions. I am not sure whether your preceding post of yours was some sort of joke or mocking the industry, I can't imagine otherwise. Finally, I can't disagree more with you on your point that income from speaking, consulting, and book writing does not pay. For someone who literally whores himself out and drags his entire personal life into the bright light of public scrutiny it absolutely pays otherwise they would not do it. Look at some of the sponsors on this site (and of course everywhere else) . They desperately attempt to come across as being successful in trading without ever showing a piece of evidence that they indeed have a positive track record. Why? Because that is what lures in customers. They usually fish for the most desperate and that is how they market their material. "my strategy code is not a secret and won't make you money and is only used as example". What is the message of this to the desperate? It is that you can learn how to write strategies yourself and make money. This is disingenuous AF because in 99.5% cases that's never gonna happen ever. Why do you think professional traders don't all write books about how they made money after they retire? Because it's pointless unless they are in need of money (which would then beg the question how successful they really were.) because you can't teach outsiders how to make money in this business unless one learns everything from the ground up and spends an incredibly long time involved and learns after many missteps and does not give up even when the odds are solidly stacked against success. Anyone who claims trading and successful investing can be learned from books or attending conferences or trading courses is a blatant liar and only looks to enrich himself. That's been my, promise to God, experience over 20 years in this profession, both professionally and in my personal life. You can't teach this stuff to average minded and bestowed people, it will never work. Please don't conflate some of your consulting gigs with the topic at hand. If you consulted on issues that did not pertain to investing and trading then sure, you might not have had to show any sort of track record. But they certainly did not hire you by drawing names from a black box. They hired you based on your expertise that they must have been convinced exists as evidenced through something you have done previously. In trading and investments this something is called a proven track record. Every single email I still occasionally get from head hunters after I professionally retired includes the phrase "proven track record of success" in reference whom they are looking for.
Rob doesn’t need anyone to defend him but IMHO he has earned his reputation here and globally. He has shared full details of his trading here and via Fundseeder (till it went defunct). I know the trading education industry is full of charlatans. But this guy is not one.
And nobody accused him whatsoever. No defending needed. Rob to me comes across as a really nice guy who knows about the industry. Disagreements don't negate above statements. But whether he ever made a dime trading or investing I have no idea about, I have not seen his track record. You said its available here, can you point us to it?
Check Fundseeder, Rob’s website and his threads here. You are correct that it was not formally audited.
Everybody can fully automize a trading system. Use an MA and go long or short if prices go thru the MA line. What I want to say is there are systems and there are systems. Just like there are cars and there are cars. A Lada is a car, and a Porsche is a car. It is not because that are both cars that they are identical. Most people can build a Lada, building a Porsche is something else. Apples compared with oranges. Or bananas, or whatever... I can : play tennis play golf play football play basketball drive a F1 car fly a plane or helicopter (but probably only one time) I can do everything But probably not at the level of the top 1000 sportsmen in each discipline. They also play, just like me...