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There are a lot of people in finance that realized money printing was essentially a risk free environment to lever up on all assets. The mechanics of interest r

There are a lot of people in finance that realized money printing was essentially a risk free environment to lever up on all assets. The mechanics of interest rates are well known, and have been for hundreds of years. During covid, again many of them realized it was a near risk free wealth generation opportunity. Many of them in NYC, with their primary address in the Bahamas. Wallstreet bets, and the general public, caught onto this only after the party was nearly over (late 2021). Finance is notoriously quiet about all of this. I have personally met many 10 man trading shops in NYC making a consistent 10-50M a year by betting on the FED. They have no linkedin profile, no website, no public face. The common theme is many spent alot of time in mainstream high finance and attended world class universities. The faces of major hedge funds you see on TV do not take risks like this (because they are playing a different game, shave 2%+ from the 10B in assets they manage), and so they downplay the certainty one could have about Bill Hwang style bets.

yieldcrv 3y ago
I’m glad to know of that experience! I have seen prop shops like that in person as well, but haven't seen the landscape through covid Some levels of equities and commodity futures ownership require disclosures, so I still contend that one person shops (or outfits primarily trading one person’s money) are too few in number than they should be There is enough liquidity in US equities and futures markets to trade $60bn-$100bn portfolios now, and hedge in the options market, there should be more people comfortable continuing to grow capital this way. Bill Huang’s only problem was using leverage, and even then in a slower market he would have been able to liquidate all positions at their higher prices. Without losses the investigation into swaps wouldn't have happened. Someone should be able to surpass Berkshire Hathaway’s cash balance, or even Elon’s net worth, by trading public equities alone at this point.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
  Yeah its suspicious that there are not more well known individuals who got wealthy in this way. Actually my biggest conspiracy theory is that there are far more very wealthy people in the world than is let on. Government statistics on wealth distribution are completely blind to all sorts of capital income and internationally hidden money.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    yeah, doesn't take a conspiracy, the idea of any transparency of ownership in some assets is extremely recent, its not a complete idea as it doesn't cover much, and its even more recent that ways of circumventing those disclosures were less numerous. the basis for all “net worth” listicles come from extrapolating mandated disclosures, and are rarely the complete picture for anyone and trusts can own anything with no record of the trust’s existence, and no disclosure of who manages or is a beneficiary of the trust and even when that exists from one point in time, a trustee or beneficiary can be hotswapped in the blink of an eye they may have no tax footprint to cause reporting, and their mere existence isn’t enough for a subpoena to go through to service providers like banks, accountants, lawyers so yeah the government knows nothing, the service providers don't know the full picture, lawyers and trust companies may only have an incomplete picture and even the beneficiaries likely have no idea, all the while their net worth is miscalculated by every pocket watcher in existence additionally, people in most developed nations don’t have to go international for this or an equivalent concept. the “stigma” towards international/offshore ownership can also be viewed as the high tax nation being protectionist of its domestic less accountable industry and finally, liquidity liquidity liquidity. what America has scaled up is a market environment where the most kinds of things can be turned into cash and other assets faster than anywhere and anytime in the history of markets. and this concept isnt done yet. many of these secret high net worth holders cant sell their properties to cash if they wanted to, but can in the future.

yieldcrv 3y ago

I’m glad to know of that experience! I have seen prop shops like that in person as well, but haven't seen the landscape through covid Some levels of equities and commodity futures ownership require disclosures, so I still contend that one person shops (or outfits primarily trading one person’s money) are too few in number than they should be There is enough liquidity in US equities and futures markets to trade $60bn-$100bn portfolios now, and hedge in the options market, there should be more people comfortable continuing to grow capital this way. Bill Huang’s only problem was using leverage, and even then in a slower market he would have been able to liquidate all positions at their higher prices. Without losses the investigation into swaps wouldn't have happened. Someone should be able to surpass Berkshire Hathaway’s cash balance, or even Elon’s net worth, by trading public equities alone at this point.

ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
Yeah its suspicious that there are not more well known individuals who got wealthy in this way. Actually my biggest conspiracy theory is that there are far more very wealthy people in the world than is let on. Government statistics on wealth distribution are completely blind to all sorts of capital income and internationally hidden money.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  yeah, doesn't take a conspiracy, the idea of any transparency of ownership in some assets is extremely recent, its not a complete idea as it doesn't cover much, and its even more recent that ways of circumventing those disclosures were less numerous. the basis for all “net worth” listicles come from extrapolating mandated disclosures, and are rarely the complete picture for anyone and trusts can own anything with no record of the trust’s existence, and no disclosure of who manages or is a beneficiary of the trust and even when that exists from one point in time, a trustee or beneficiary can be hotswapped in the blink of an eye they may have no tax footprint to cause reporting, and their mere existence isn’t enough for a subpoena to go through to service providers like banks, accountants, lawyers so yeah the government knows nothing, the service providers don't know the full picture, lawyers and trust companies may only have an incomplete picture and even the beneficiaries likely have no idea, all the while their net worth is miscalculated by every pocket watcher in existence additionally, people in most developed nations don’t have to go international for this or an equivalent concept. the “stigma” towards international/offshore ownership can also be viewed as the high tax nation being protectionist of its domestic less accountable industry and finally, liquidity liquidity liquidity. what America has scaled up is a market environment where the most kinds of things can be turned into cash and other assets faster than anywhere and anytime in the history of markets. and this concept isnt done yet. many of these secret high net worth holders cant sell their properties to cash if they wanted to, but can in the future.