Not All Greener Pastures Are the Same

#leaders #investors

For some of us, there is no greener pasture than waiting to get a striper on the line.  And then of course, there’s the view in the attached photo from the East River, framing the greatest city in the world.  It’s hard to see Luigi’s Pizza right down 23rd by the boat slip, but you should definitely hit them for a grandma pie (how ya doin?) if you get a chance.  And then, there are all the beautiful hedge funds sitting on that island, the beating heart of the financial world…. Yep, it’s like landing the Triple Lindy. 

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It’s heaven…Zen even.  Your confidence rising high, you reach for even more.  Your best friend since high school nearby, taking a break from replacing peoples hips and knees, says, “Can we please just be Yankee fans and enjoy a World Series win?” We always want more.   

But more, or the greener pasture, is different for each of us.  Some Mets fans, for example, are in agony watching the Yanks/Dodgers.  And some of us are happy that any New York team is going to play the last game of the baseball season this year.   

As for our careers in long/short equity, the greener pastures are different, too.  Some of us really like just picking stocks, covering our space well, and working together with a great team to achieve results and make some money.  And others, we want to have our own portfolio, to manage that team, to build that firm…you get it.  We all have our own happy. Mine looks like this:  

Now let’s talk about yours:   

The Professional Analyst.   

The best people in the business acknowledge the cornerstone importance of idea generation to a successful career arc.  It is the centrifuge that powers everything else.  A great trader does better with ideas with more alpha potential.  Being different – creating a variant view – provides even greater upsides when you get there first.  And the best teams and the best traders are either great analysts themselves or rely on them to uncover these ideas.  It starts with picking stocks.  Sure, you might like the way a chart looks.  You might want some exposure to a sector or trend.  And there are going to be plenty of times you are looking for help on the short side to hedge something.  Or maybe you want all of it.  You want to be the five-tool player: