That's why trading is (in my religion at least) forbidden.
Fade_Dance · 1h ago
Outside of proprietary trading firms it doesn't make much sense to actively trade, and that's coming from someone who spends their days trading.
OP was gambling and beholden to logical fallacies, but even moving on from there, you immediately run into other crossroads, like:
tax - trading is short term cap gains. As a trader you should be well versed in concepts like opportunity cost, and it's immediately a huge headwind to turn down long term capital gains tax advantages, especially when ETFs essentially have loopholes where they can actively trade within the structure yet not tax the ETF holder. I did a stint offshore, because literally it made no sense to trade unless I was offshore. Eventually I just accepted that as a trader, I wasn't totally optimizing for long term capital appreciation, and that was ok, because it was simply something I wanted to do and something that was rewarding personally.
OPM - I distinctly remember a point where I realized that because I had a 600% year doing SPAC warrant/option relative value trading with Other People's Money, that "the stars were aligned" (actually this is super common - see most hedge funds) and I could cash the reputational capital I had and transition to taking a performance fee, a management fee, and lean on compounding while essentially moving the account to a cloaked lightly levered long portfolio (say 1.2x), and there was essentially no reason for me to ever work again. Writing up quarterly updates and participating in the occasional special situation would be almost no effort. I could keep it going for 10 guaranteed, even if it was mediocre for the investors. Compounding is insidiously powerful, and most people don't understand the cost they're giving up if they sign up for a 2 and 20 fee structure. Incentives are misaligned. If you are a trader who can actually achieve high returns, you will likely find yourself managing OPM and find yourself in the position to harvest/take advantage of it (often older rich people's money, and time ticks by faster for them, to be frank), and from a purely personal financial perspective, it is the correct choice to get riskless compounding harvesting. Or perhaps you will find yourself in proprietary trading, which is of course a legitimate (and demanding) path to take, but this is a brutally high bar that can't be "faked".
I've only truly justified it by working it into a greater framework where it acts as an overlay on top of portfolio management which is hyper-focused on compounding/drawdowns, so it is forced to be additive in nature and doesn't eschew the traditional investing frameworks that so many traders apparently throw to the winds.
I don't know... I think to some degree it's one of those things some people are "born to do", and outside of that cohort maybe it just isn't a great idea to pursue, because the costs, both personal and monetarily, are extremely high.
OP was gambling and beholden to logical fallacies, but even moving on from there, you immediately run into other crossroads, like:
tax - trading is short term cap gains. As a trader you should be well versed in concepts like opportunity cost, and it's immediately a huge headwind to turn down long term capital gains tax advantages, especially when ETFs essentially have loopholes where they can actively trade within the structure yet not tax the ETF holder. I did a stint offshore, because literally it made no sense to trade unless I was offshore. Eventually I just accepted that as a trader, I wasn't totally optimizing for long term capital appreciation, and that was ok, because it was simply something I wanted to do and something that was rewarding personally.
OPM - I distinctly remember a point where I realized that because I had a 600% year doing SPAC warrant/option relative value trading with Other People's Money, that "the stars were aligned" (actually this is super common - see most hedge funds) and I could cash the reputational capital I had and transition to taking a performance fee, a management fee, and lean on compounding while essentially moving the account to a cloaked lightly levered long portfolio (say 1.2x), and there was essentially no reason for me to ever work again. Writing up quarterly updates and participating in the occasional special situation would be almost no effort. I could keep it going for 10 guaranteed, even if it was mediocre for the investors. Compounding is insidiously powerful, and most people don't understand the cost they're giving up if they sign up for a 2 and 20 fee structure. Incentives are misaligned. If you are a trader who can actually achieve high returns, you will likely find yourself managing OPM and find yourself in the position to harvest/take advantage of it (often older rich people's money, and time ticks by faster for them, to be frank), and from a purely personal financial perspective, it is the correct choice to get riskless compounding harvesting. Or perhaps you will find yourself in proprietary trading, which is of course a legitimate (and demanding) path to take, but this is a brutally high bar that can't be "faked".
I've only truly justified it by working it into a greater framework where it acts as an overlay on top of portfolio management which is hyper-focused on compounding/drawdowns, so it is forced to be additive in nature and doesn't eschew the traditional investing frameworks that so many traders apparently throw to the winds.
I don't know... I think to some degree it's one of those things some people are "born to do", and outside of that cohort maybe it just isn't a great idea to pursue, because the costs, both personal and monetarily, are extremely high.