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Strategies & Market Trends : From the Trading Desk -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: xstuckey who wrote (1838)	12/1/1997 9:38:00 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 4969

"Easier to accomplish with your own money" I disagree with your thought... When you trade someone else's money, the worst that can happen is you are fired or maybe sued. But when it is your's money, there are a lot more things to worry about.... That is why you will find many investment professionals who don't even invest their own money in the market.. Would you trust someone with you money who doesn't invest his own in the same place...If you do it is your mistake... Advice is cheap...!

To: xstuckey who wrote (1838)	12/1/1997 9:52:00 PM
From: Robert Graham	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4969

If I had been Don, I would have pointed out that this is much easier to accomplish with your own money than with the responsibility for the money of others. You are a rather unique indivudual who is concerned about losing other people's money. I am sincere when I say this. I have learned that it is usually the other way around. For example, there is the trader that trades for an company. They can be very successful trading the firm's money. Now they want to trade their own money so they can obtain the profits they have been creating for the company. What happens is when they trade for themselves, there performance is washed out and they end up going back to trading other people's money in short order. This is becuase trading for a firm is just a job. They can leave this behind at the end of every day. Emotional detachment is easier for them in this situation. However, when they place their own money at stake, this is a very different experience for the, that many find they cannot emotionally detach themselves from. So they end up making mistakes that they would not have mede in their previous job. As a consequence, they end up losing their money. Now thinking about this, I see that it would be differrent to me if I were to lose other individual's money than if a lost a firm's money. So I would have the same problem that you would in this situation. So it now looks like I agree with what you have said! :) Bob Graham

To: xstuckey who wrote (1838)	12/2/1997 11:39:00 AM
From: Dave Hanson	Respond to of 4969

I'd second X on the importance of emotional detatchment (as opposed to intutive detatchment, to pick up on an earlier useful distinction made in this thread.) A possible related advantage of using your own funds is that they are under your complete control indefinately. Other people aren't increasing or decreasing their positions with you, or requiring reassurance RE your strategy or individual trading decisions. Of course, this advantage will be more or less significant depending on the kind of investing you do--some fund managers will be largely insultated from such concerns. But at the very least it is one more set of variables to worry about. Steve, thanks for engaging Don and the others on this issue, as on so many others. Best, Dave