Like I said Surf...I am not looking. but others that have read your post might be helped. Good Trading to all... Michael B. P.S. Hey how have you been? How is your trading going may I ask? I miss your excellent posts recently.
ok, cool--thank you. i am simply holding several core positions presently---short DJIA, long EUR/USD, short OIL, long NAPS. not trading actively any longer. regards, surf
Sounds like your set up for the rough ride to come... Do you find the "irrational exuberance" (gawd, I liked that Greeenspan) at market tops and bottoms to be hard/different to trade?
'You may not be able to charge a performance fee but you can use the margin to make yourself some money.' Can you elaborate on this..........are you pointing at 15 clients managed individually or in one combined account. I think one can manage upto 15 clients and charge incentive fees also, but they cannot combine their funds into one big account..........not without registration as a hedge fund. Regarding the LLC set up if you mention it in your mandate then incentive can be charged otherwise private equity and venture cap firms would not be functioning. Usually private eqity firms charges 20% incentive after a certain hurdle return like 8% or so. Also, with LLC one cannot use margin on pooled funds and take home all the returns from margin and charging 6-8-10% annual management fees can be termed 'unjustified'....something on the loan sharking lines. Others might want to correct me if any of the views are wrong or outdated.
no, i love trading when the cycle changes. simply working on another project, nothing to do with market environment. surfer
My understanding of Advent products is that you'll need two different software packages - One to track the portfolio (Advent Axys, I believe) and one for partner accounting (Advent Partner). If you are trading anything besides equities (Forex, Futures) this may not be your best solution. Our firm provides operational and accounting support on an outsourcing basis. Feel free to email me if you would like to dicuss this option.
Another BIG difference is the capacity. If you trade a couple of mill with a prop firm vs 100mill for a hedge fund your trading approach will potentially suffer from liquidity issues. I am amazed nobody brought this up before as it is a major big deal. So if you are a very profitable prop trader your performance will not necessarily be duplicated in a hedge fund. Another problem stems from the mental stress of having people watching your every move, which affects judgement thereby impeding your trading. Just a few thoughts...
Thanks for all your comments guys - especially the one thinking I was a troll. =) That was funny. But overall, no one gave any information on recommended portfolio systems nor any of their own experiences. My experience so far is that Advent is difficult to deal with. The software is very expensive for a start up hedge fund, and the service has been very unhelpful - mainly given the fact that I am a small hedge fund. I recently came across ATWeb and did a demo with them. Their system looks very promising for the needs of a small hedge fund. Unfortunately, it lacks any interface with major trading systems. We are going to use Scottrade (yes, they have a hedge fund solution under their Scottrade service - NOT the retail versions you see on the commercials), but the ATWeb software will not be able to download the aggregate portfolio information for us. We will have to do it manually every break period. Yikes. There's the final info. Thanks again for all your thoughts.
advent is known for its shitty customer service. I dont know if you are looking just for software or an actual administrator, but as far as admins go if you are less than 50m now days they dnt want your biz so you hadbetter just take what you can get if you are under that size. we are happy with fortis and use beauchamp for our OMS/accounting package in house. The OMS just keeps track of your exact PnL per strategy and overall, etc and doesnt even touch on artnership accounting which is totally done by the admin and verified at year end by the auditor. Joe