See: http://www.nfa.futures.org/nfa-compliance/publication-library/disclosure-document-guide.pdf Page 36, specifically. You must disclose your past performance history, until you have 3 years of operating history for the fund itself. This is the case for all registered commodity pools. Some (very shady) pools intentionally seek the QEP-only exemption from registration with the NFA, precisely because they want to avoid this requirement.
I wouldn't be so sure about this---- if so, its an outlier. Someone won 50 million with a $1.00 lottery ticket also. surf
Alright, you win. You are absolutely 100% correct. Not trying to start a fight. Also, not worth it for me to take the time to back up the statements of others. I also wasn't claiming that there has been expert testimony, only that it would be easy to get, as that is the prevailing opinion in the industry (that managing a fund and trading a personal account are different). A word of caution is just a word of caution. Didn't mean to get you all fired up.
Surf, the barrier to setting up a hedge fund is very low. There are how many thousands of hedge funds? For many it is just an investment partnership between a small number of people. Saying someone should not bother without 150 million is just silly. All you really need to start a fund is some personal wealth, trading/investing skills, and some rich friends. Not every person ability or desire to tap into institutional word. For many a 10-20m fund that grows almost exclusively through performance is a nice living. After 10 years of that you retire quite wealthy by most people's standards. Maybe not the top .00001% but a hell of a lot better off than if you had become a Dr. lawyer or run most any other kind of small business. Pretending there are these huge barriers to entry is just flat out untrue. If one gets to a point where they can trade their seven figure account for a nice living, setting up a small fund is logical and quite simple. Why? Because one does not need to suck anyones balls to get started, you just do it.
Like I said, I try not to get opinionated on here... I try to skip the arguments and ego-fights. But there are clearly a lot of people trying to make serious career/life decisions on the basis of what they read on this forum. And unfortunately, finding good legal advice can be expensive. So, I think it's extremely important to be clear on the facts, and be equally clear when we're just speculating.
Ditto. My intent wasn't to speculate. Rather I was attempting to convey words of caution that have been expressed by industry professionals. But I should note that much of what a lawyer or CPA does is to speculate. The law can be very subjective and is up to the personal whims of the judge in many cases.
MONTHLY UPDATE APRIL 30 ⢠Personal account values as of todayâs close was $711,869. The account value in the beginning of the 2011 was 569k, a profit of 143k year to date which is around 25.1% return year to date. Below I have also included the monthly results since I started this thread. Value as of, Today April 30 -$711,869.00 March 31 -$645,827.00 February 28 -$616,668.00 End of 2010 -$569K. ⢠Incubator hedge fund: April was the first month of trading for the fund, and the values as of todayâs close are $107,030 which is a $4,000 profit for the 1st month. (The total amount includes the 100k initial deposit plus the 3k monthly deposit.) ⢠April was an extremely good month for almost all of my strategies and probably for most investors. Anything from fixed income, domestic & international stocks, short volatility, bonds, and precious metals went up up up..(By the way I do fully expect to see a bubble burst when it comes to âsilverâ not very far from now.) I hope to have a longer post in the next couple of days discussing strategy and performance of the last month, and some strategy changes I might start to initiate in the upcoming months. Looking forward for your comments and advice.
You had a nice month, and year. I'm only up 8% for the month, but had an absolutely lousy march -10%. Good to be back to almost flat from my march close.
Etile, Impressive performance. I don't know if someone said this already but why constantly add 3k/month to your incubator fund. It isn't a lot of money and it will obfuscate your returns. Keep it clean and simple. These days marketing a fund is hard. Investors hold all the cards. Anything that makes your fund more difficult to decipher will make it harder to market in the future. Just a thought.