I heard marketsurfer is the highly revered Victor Niederhoffer himself. Is it true? I'm sure I can learn a lot from the Master himself.
From the writing style and access to data, I made the connection. I don't mind multi-nicks as long they are not trolls.
Except the average hedge fund does outperform the average trader, especially when it comes to their targeted goals which are often much more about correlation than absolute returns. It's a profession like engineering or being a doctor or a scientist. Certainly there may be a few savants out there that can do a better job at scientific discovery than a team of PhDs, but its rather absurd to say that self-taught solo scientists generally do a better job than professionals, and there's no evidence that the field of trading is somehow different than every other professional endeavor in this respect.
both groups are losers compared to buy and hold. "its rather absurd to say that self-taught solo scientists generally do a better job than professionals, and there's no evidence that the field of trading is somehow different than every other professional endeavor in this respect." "there's no evidence" truly you jest.
Surf, STFU already. You never answered the OP's question and just derailed the discussion with your drivel. You are the one degrading the site that is why you need to post under an alias... ----------------------- Now as an actual answer: "Most hedge funds fail: their average life span is about five years. Out of an estimated seventy-two hundred hedge funds in existence at the end of 2010, seven hundred and seventy-five failed or closed in 2011, as did eight hundred and seventy-three in 2012, and nine hundred and four in 2013. This implies that, within three years, around a third of all funds disappeared. The over-all number did not decrease, however, because hope springs eternal, and new funds are constantly being launched." https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/07/31/1913792/most-hedge-funds-fail/ Also most HF don't beat the S&P so just being long SPY you are doing better than most HF.
A lot depends on timing of the launch of the hedge fund. David Einhorn is considered one of the most successful hedge fund managers. So is Bill Ackman. However, if they had launched their hedge funds a few years ago when their losing streak started, they would have failed like the rest and none of us would have heard of them. They were lucky. They had a good start. The early profits and reputation gained allowed the to survive the bad streak later on. If they had a bad start, investors will pull out and they would have failed, even though they are good investors.