Goldman Sachs Said to Cut More Than 20 in Sales, Trading

[guestuser]

@ohai

Ok I agree that the 20 people is not really a big deal in isolation, although it is a bit depressing when viewed with layoffs from all these other firms. I guess what I’m trying to say (in response to bpulog) is that starting a hedge fund is not really a viable option for most laid off finance people. You need to be quite a senior person to have enough influence to attract $100 million in investments, or whatever you need to start a fund. The normal 5-year GS VP/director guy has little chance to do this in today’s environment. Instead of being job creators, they are more likely to struggle for a year or so before accepting a somewhat less desirable job in finance. Or if they are already wealthy, like with $20 million or so in assets, they might just move somewhere cheap and retire.

I agree that further layoffs for support staff are possible. However, it’s more likely that the support staff have already been downsized. The axe tends to fall on these guys before the front office guys.

I agree with this. It is extremely difficult to get money unless you have a successful long-term track record and a well developed infrastructure. The institutional funds market has become very well defined and extremely competitive – it’s not like it was in the '90s for start up hedge fund. The best way to start a hedge fund is to either already be wealthy or to know wealthy people (likely other fund managers) and get seed capital that way. If you happen to know Julian Robertson, that would be a good start. But basically, starting a hedge fund today is more difficult than at almost any point in history, and it’s unlikely to get much easier any time soon (at least until the economy improves and people want to start investing again).

[1recho]

I thought the OP meant 20% , not 20. Followed the link.

it’s 20.

Who cares about 20.

20 = 0.

Vente = de nada.

I could go on.