Depends on your expectations. It’s all about expectations. There are plenty of Americans that live off 30 could retire if they were willing to do so. They’re not, so they sell out their hours for some extra cash. I’ll note that this may be more difficult in America than in Canada where education and health expenses are actually an ongoing concern, something I have zero concern about here.
I completely hear you though PA. A job really does suck. But alas, until you have the capital, that’s life. Starting your own business is also still work, more work than a job in many cases, though it can be much more rewarding.
I’ve been doing this. It’s (so far) less $$$ than I would make at a salary gig, but more fun, flexible, no office cube, no annoying coworkers, and I can just fire annoying clients. Plus I’ve been reasoning it’s best to transition to self-employment now…than wait and eventually get forced out because of age. Get it going in early 40s, then have something to do in retirement.
my god this is one of the dumbest threads in awhile. it makes me miss those “I have IT experience in India and want to be a US portfolio manager” threads.
so purealpha’s conclusion is what? everyone is a dumbass and should just quit their jobs?
Why would there be “a conclusion”? Your small brain can’t compute without packing everything into a little quant box, like a NPV calculation? Life ain’t NPV biatch.
No offense, but reading the original post… your logic makes no sense to me.
Maybe you can explain it to me.
Let’s say that you are so great at managing your own portfolio that you can make $$$ in order to meet your living expenses and then some. What kind of annual return are you generating on your portfolio and at what kind of sharpe ratio / alpha? If you just have large amount of capital and are getting subpar returns based on risk, then your money is just being devalued over time, so it might not be the best strategy.
Either way… let’s say that you are skilled and you can make a nominal 2-3% more than the average PM out there. If i had that kind of ability, I would probably try to offer my services to an employer and negotiate a comp plan where I would get a percentage of return above a set target, thereby earning more money than I would managing my own portfolio with only my capital. Obviously, the employer would be skeptical but if you are truly skilled, over a short period of time, the firm will buy in and the firm should be able to attract enough investors to build a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. Remember, 1% of a billion is 100% of $10 million.
So my question would be… why not do the above instead of coming on here and putting down people with a salaries job?
For me, I’ve made some money managing my own portfolio and lost some money. Overall, I feel that over a long period of time, it’s hard to beat a well-diversified portfolio.
What logic, was it a logic post?? Anyhow, I would do that, but I need to do some work right now for a client.
Well, two reasons, 1) maybe I already did that AND came on here, not mutually exclusive, or 2) maybe I don’t want to do that. Why are you guys so defensive?
Maybe Americans are always fishing for something to feel offended about? Pretty sure there is nothing offensive about some random internet person’s feelings about jobs.
It may be something, but probably not that. Americans are always making up weird conclusions. Do you realize that? Or you think that is totally normal?
The logic of your post was that you were so good with portfolio management / day trading that opportunity cost of working a “job” wasn’t worth it because you are making so much money managing your own money. I just laid out how you can recover your opportunity cost and make more money than working for some client. So, all in all, it doesn’t make sense why you would work for a client or you would have to worry about opportunity cost.
What’s with the “maybe”? Did you do it or not? If so, prove it. if you don’t want to do it, that’s your personal choice, but it doesn’t make much sense why you wouldn’t want to do it and doesn’t give you much credibility from my perspective.
I’m not defensive… I am asking questions because 1) if there was someone who could consistently beat the market, I would like to invest my money into a fund that said person manages and 2) I do wonder if you are just bs-ing.
Assumes a person values money over other valuable things, like a life. Making more money isn’t super interesting to me, diminishing marginal utility or whatever.
