Earning £100k a year - Silly young people who think they can

Discussing your salary in public is a bit of a lapse, old buddy.

 

Do you perceive IT to be a dominant force in salaries? I think this idea is misguided. The average Sales Director's salary is around £175K. IT isnt where it's at for the big buck IME.

 

I havent said what my salary is buddy - for all you know I may have been kidding even with the > sign

 

No I think its in the world of trading.

 

In early 2001 a colleague and I set up a trading company. We started with $10K as a float and we initially kicked off trading spot currency positions. We then moved to protected options trading and we were doing ok, by September our $10K had grown to just over $18K and generally my collegue's technique was proving quite effective - one he'd honed over some years but without an active vehicle. Unfortunately we had two open positions on September 11 2001 and lost nearly $11K. After that we didnt recapture any form (tumultuous period of course) and I then pulled my capital out with a net loss of $4500. Pity really.

 

I wouldn't mind betting that BBV's is at least 13" long

 

are you saying that bbv is some sort of horse? a stallion maybe?

 

Sorry to hear that greg - its always a good idea to use simulations or simultaneous worst week calculations to determine risk levels such that you dont get knocked out of the market by catastrophic events. This is especially important in options trading due to the leveraging often employed and the under estimation of tail end risk.

 

My penis is a perfectly modest and respectable 10 inches - thats more than enough width for anyone I think!

 

I'm sure Devil's more than happy with that...

 

Fortunately we were in effect protected on our option positions from close of business to the next day opening call. The problem for us was the fact the positions could not be closed until some days later. By that point the protection was meaningless as when business opened the positions had collapsed

 

Indeed - thats where active hedging comes in. But you need complicated risk models etc - all beyond the scope of small outfits.

 

Most definitely. As you know it's not been long that independent's can access real time data, so it's opened up lots of opportunities to trade from home more easily without having to pay large sums for data access. I think it's fair to say though, considering the tiny sums we were trading that planning for an attack on the world trade centre and the subsequent complete closure of the market was not worth legislating for. Ironically if the positions had been puts we would have made a substantial profit.

 

Well that kind of wishful trading is always a good idea in hindsight

Personally I only trade futures. Its a lot safer and more tractable.

 

Please explain yourself, if you can.

 

A hedge fund.

Nothing to explain bub. You dont know what I earn.

 

Hence your desire for proper risk management. I saw myself more as a options pirate until my vessel foundered due to an act of Allah.

 

Indeed. I am very low drawdown risk and volatility ... with a big return in my pants nonetheless.

 

are you going to start shorting commodities yet? It seems to me as if the whole sector is overdue a correction.