7 ms·
a lot is stacked against you as a private investor. being very smart is not enough to beat the market consistently when your competition is other very smart peo
by leetcrew 6y ago
a lot is stacked against you as a private investor. being very smart is not enough to beat the market consistently when your competition is other very smart people who themselves have a support staff of very smart people and they all spend 8+ hours a day analyzing the market and making trades.
even if you quit your day job to trade full-time, they can collect information in ways that you can't (eg, satellite imagery), and they may also have direct lines to an exchange to execute trades faster than you. unlike you, they trade in large enough volume that they can get people to pick up the phone to trade after the exchange closes. they have access to entire classes of investments that are closed to you due to capital requirements.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoHm. I would argue that working for an institution that gives you access to satellite imagery also implies you can’t really play below a certain threshold of volume. Otherwise it’s like hunting deer with a ballistic missile: you will kill the deer, but for that money you could have raised a whole tribe of them.