How Institutional Investors Do It

What is the difference between an individual investor/trader and large institutions? We have identified two main differences:

1. The ability to not get distracted by too much information
2. Consistency

I have been servicing fund managers for over 25 years, advising some of the biggest names in fund management; from large mutual funds with billions (or even trillions) in assets under management, to small privately held family portfolios. My job meant that I was involved in the fund manager’s routine every day; I would call them and/or send them an email in the morning with my views on what might affect their portfolios during the day, provide them with new ideas, make sure they exit when the time is right, and then have a call later in the afternoon to wrap up the day. I did this every day with my top 15 “clients”; that was a lot of calls and screens, I can tell you.

So, what was I doing for them? I was scanning the markets for opportunities, interpreting the news into relevant ways of affecting the markets and their investments, and consulting with my technical analysts on trading ideas with solid setups.

You can then imagine a fund manager, whose investments span the whole world, only having to look at two or three reports every day to get their ideas instead of having to go through all the news websites, look at charts, etc. Once they have gone through these morning reports, they would identify what to focus on during the day, maybe have a more in-depth look at these ideas, and then act upon them.

Of course, the above is a very simplified way of both my job and theirs, but it gives you an idea.

Looking at what we call “retail” investors and traders over the years, the factors contributing to their losing their money has always been the distraction of TOO MUCH INFORMATION that is available out there, and an inconsistency in their approach. The inconsistency may come from emotional pressures of trading in volatile conditions, or the lack of reliable information every day.

If there is only one takeaway that I have from my years of experience is “KEEP IT SIMPLE”. There is no need to waste time and energy on useless information, and just focus on making money consistently! Ultimately, this is the goal of investing and trading in financial markets.

You may also ask why isn’t this service available for retail investors and traders? Simply, because institutional investors pay a lot of money for this service (in the hundreds of thousands), which individuals obviously can’t afford relative to their investments. Until now, that is!

We have decided to bring that same service to the individual investor and trader, who might even have an account no more than $100! Why are we doing it? Honestly, we have had enough seeing people with money making more money, while those with little to invest are the ones who always lose. And, as you can see from my above explanation, the solution is just so simple!

We scan the markets every day, look at all the news, charts, calendars, data, etc, and just put everything into a very brief introduction to the day, highlighting what we see is moving the markets on the day, in addition to technical analysis setups that we are looking at and fundamental analysis of companies.

How you use this document is then up to you! We are not giving investment or trading advice, but we are just bringing you the main things that we know large funds which move the markets will also be looking at. The benefit of this is that you won’t get caught in the wrong direction of their trades…

We really hope we can be of some help!

(Written by Hassan Afifi)