Sabena is of course correct. Forex along with global fixed income markets are the primary source of liquidity for funds, although the volatility of stock index futures certainly provides opportunity. But on balance Tudor Jones, Trout, Kovner ect. made the bulk of their money in Treasuries and or Forex. Don't completely write off equities though. Stocks still trade at higher vols then most anything else, and a talented trader can sacrifice short term liquidity concerns with the advantage of using capital to "goose" a company with i.e. a large short interest. You may be able to support your position in a lot of stocks, try doing that in $-Yen.
To give an idea of the liquidity in the Forex market, I had a call with a guy on the Forex trading desk of Lind-Waldock and he told me that an order of 1000 lots = 10 million dollars is executed in seconds. They have over 2 billion dollars of netting lines with 50 of the major trading banks in the world giving them the best liquidity for their risk. Minimum account size is 50000,-$. I have no deal with these guys !
Sabena: Lind is safe and secure. Full clearing member of CME and CBOT. They've been doing spot for about 5 years now. Would highly recommend them in lieu of any of these new fangled Forex firms that I get e-mails from every other day. I can lose my own money easy enough without some firm going bust on me.
Even better. Refco's so obnoxious, I love them. Tom Dittmer (Refco) and Barry Lind are probably worth a half billion between them.
I will agree that Forex and Futures are a very different market in terms of scope and sizing than equities. My comments were only targeted at hedge funds that trade stocks. I will note that most hedge funds that trade currency are well over $1B in size. - Greg
I thought somebody might be interested: WHAT? TheStreet.comâs Advanced Disciplines & Strategies for Running Hedge Funds WHEN? May 2-4, 2002 WHERE? The Doral Golf Resort & Spa â Miami, FL http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/conference_hedgefundmiami.html it seems a bit much to me, but I guess if you're interested in starting a hedge fund, then this would be good. disclaimer: I don't work for Thestreet.com, have a hedge fund, actively promote the site, or care if anybody goes...but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night.