A Trader's Life

Quint Tatro  Nov 21, 2008 10:20 am

A Trader's Life
 
What the day-to-day work of money management looks like right now.
 

 


Amid the incessant talk of government bailouts, economic data and political transitions, lies the discussion surrounding mass liquidations. No one quite knows the number, but speculation as to how many hedge funds have gone out of business, or will go out of business, might just be the vast majority of the group as a whole.

Just yesterday, we heard that Citigroup (C) was closing its Corporate Special Opportunities fund, which -- though of course just one of the company’s many major issues -- joins a host of other closings taking place all over the globe.

While most would regard this as a sad state of affairs, others would adopt the “it serves them right” attitude. The money-management world is a place where one can still see the last hopeful flickers of true capitalism. Despite what you read, or hear, not everyone is under mass liquidation, and not everyone will close their doors.

When all is said and done, a new crop of advisors and managers will be ushered in to serve the needs of those who remain, money will transition from one shop to another, and those are the managers and funds we’ll be reading about in the years to come.

So rather than drone on about the negatives currently surrounding the business, I thought I would walk you through a day in the life of myself, a manager who has navigated these rough waters well and is capitalizing on the advisory shift taking place. The story isn’t all that exciting, and it doesn’t take place in the heart of Manhattan, but that might just be one of the reasons my doors aren’t closing.

5:30 a.m.
The alarm clock goes off and I catch the tail end of an interview with Ford and General Motors labor unions discussing the possible auto bailout. My first thought: Where does it stop? I quietly creep down the hall (so as to not wake my 2-year-old) and settle in on the living room couch with my Bible for some quiet time.

6:00 a.m.
Still lounging on the couch I fire up the laptop to find futures flat to negative. I jump on Twitter to catch up on the latest overnight news flow, and quickly skim through the headlines. News doesn’t play into my investment or trading strategy one bit, so any gander at this is simply to keep informed.
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Comments (5) See All Comments »
11-21-2008, 11:13 am
Quint,
You mention that you have THREE brokerage platforms. Why? What is the advantage of having more than one?
Thanks,
David
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11-21-2008, 12:15 pm
At this moment it is security and capital access. I am a bit paranoid about all that is going on and I want to make sure I have access to capital no matter what.
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11-21-2008, 12:33 pm
Sir, do you have more than one telecom provider hooked up ? Lost connectivity would be my number one operational risk thought.
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11-21-2008, 12:45 pm
Currently I have a cable internet connection with my back up being a wireless card in the event that goes out. It works surprisingly well and when I have had to use it, the downtime is minimal. We are just now looking into another back up.
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11-21-2008, 2:09 pm
I ran into a device called "fatpipe", which allows for seamless use of 2 (or more) IP addresses, which implys service providers. fwiw.
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