Hello, my name is Caleb Dismuke I live in Flowood, MS with my wife and 2 year old daughter. I graduated from MS state university in 2005. I majored in finance, but I cannot tell you what I actually learned. I have had a passion for investing since my freshman year when I read Ben Graham's "The Intelligent Investor". I started off as a value guy and still believe in those principals, but my focus has shifted to what some would call "Global Macro". I am currently in the process to raise funds for a private partnership that will trade currencies, stocks, bonds, and commodities. I think it is important to know peoples motivation for doing things so here is mine.
As I am writing this on October 17, 2016, I read in a WSJ article titled "The Dying Business of Picking Stocks". The article was documenting the huge shift from active management to passive. This trend has been going on for at least two years and appears to be accelerating. I get it, active managers have underperformed their benchmarks and their fees are usually double that of passive. I believe over the next 20 years the asset management business will undergo a seismic shift in the way ACTIVE managers are compensated and the transparency they provide their clients will improve 10x. I believe fee based compensation will start to gain traction, while fees based on % of AUM will slowly decline. In the future, I hope to provide a cost effective way for any individual to achieve active exposure at passive pricing. Think, NETFLIX like pricing and ease of use for active management. I will write more about this as time goes on.
MY FIRST TRADING LESSON
I remember my first trade I really got clocked on. At this point I had only been trading for a few months. I don't remember the exact day, but it was a non-farm payroll report Friday. The unemployment rate came in at 10%. I believe it was the first double digit unemployment rate since the 80's(could be wrong?). I immediately thought, wow what terrible news and sold e-mini S&P futures. Fifteen minutes later I was down serious money(at least for me) and covered my short. That was my first lesson to never trade the news, and I have not done it again.