This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Former Tudor Star Trader Mark Hillery Joins Revolving Door Specialist Brevan Howard
Mark Hillery, who for many years brought riches to Tudor's LPs (and pocketed a princely sum for himself in the process), levering into one of the longest bull run periods in history, yet who alongside Raptor Fund manager Jim Pallotta (who shut down his fund in July), were unable to brave the storm that occurred once the Greenspan cheap credit fueled market came to a screeching halt, and left the firm last year, has joined London's multi-billion hedge fund Brevan Howard, reports FT Alphaville. The article reports that Hillery will now be responsible for trading within Brevan Howard's macro strategies (not like there are many others there). As for Brevan Howard, an exhaustive overview of the firm's retention and trading practices by Bloomberg highlights the firm's SACesque approach to employee motivation:
"Howard
fires underperformers and sometimes entire desks when markets
turn against them."
Adjusted for risk, 70
percent of Brevan Howard’s money is allocated to the top seven
traders.
The traders who aren’t earning a profit find themselves
under withering scrutiny. A trader whose portfolio falls 4
percent will meet with Brevan’s chief risk officer, Aron Landy,
who will likely reduce the money he or she manages and direct a
change in tactics and a lowering of risk.
An 8 percent loss triggers a change in the trader’s mandate
and a further cut in capital.
A 12 percent drawdown warrants a “time-out” -- a shutdown
in trading that may result in a resignation or dismissal. Says
one Brevan employee, who asked not to be named, “If you last two
years, you’ve done well.”
We hope Hillery managed to carve a nice 2 year (at least) guarantee in a market where procyclical, bull market traders' resumes litter the inbox of every recruiting firm. Yet, now that Marc has to put the proverbial "capital to use" and earn his keep, one wonders just how many more up points the FTSE will see due to this most practiced currently prevalent "investment" style of momentum chasing (which if "everyone is doing it" must be right)?
- 11054 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


You can question the ethics of momentum-chasing, but you can't argue with its necessity in today's market.
WOW
In my opinion a good trader should never lose money. A good trader should simply be managing their risk while taking advantage of short term opportunities. You seem to always mistake trading and investing. In my view if you have a single down month you should be gone.
To natural:
WHat happens if in managing your "risk" results in successive minute losses that accumulate into a net small loss for the month say in the range of -2 to -3 %?
Have you seen the road he lives on? The house look amazing in Wimbledon Village, my old boss lives there, wow they must have been earning serious dosh
Natural,
You are clearly an idiot who has never traded a dollar of your OWN money or anyone else's entrusted to you.
What you are suggestiing is akin to saying a good baseball batter should 'always' find himself on base, by either earning a walk (managing their risk of a strikeout) or getting a hit (taking advantage of short term opportunities). ZH is a great site but every now and then a braying jackass comes along who the rest of us are obliged to censure.
Vermalet
While I agree with most of your post, I feel the need to take issue with your last statement. ZH is not a great site. The reason most people read it is because it is run by and populated with jackasses. Censuring them does absolutely no good. Which itself is good because it is entertaining to watch people flaunting their ignorance.
Natural,
If everyone who had a single down month got fired there would be no-one left. Go back to junior school you fucking moron.
Look at BH's returns and you will see some drawdowns over consecutive months.... should the fund be closed down ?
Natural,
If everyone who had a single down month got fired there would be no-one left. Go back to junior school you fucking moron.
Look at BH's returns and you will see some drawdowns over consecutive months.... should the fund be closed down ?
Natural is obviously a genius who has solved the mystery of markets. I am only surprised he has found the time to allow us to benefit from his insightful comments. No matter how long I work in markets, it never ceases to amaze me how many deluded iditos there are who openly claim to have never lost money.