What indicators do Hedge Funds use or do they even use one?

What indicators do Hedge Funds use or do they even use one?

They use my super-galactic-mayan-calendar-no-loss indicator.

39.95 on ebay

Hedge Funds have traders like we are .
I guess each individual trader has their own opinion as we do.
Most, use naked charts.

But in general, Hedge funds do not speculate in currencies
much.

For the other instruments, they use informational data and volume
info.

If they do forex, is very little of their working capital.. or they use currencies only to hedge some of the other instrument they trade.

J.
.

I know a guy at a mid sized hedge fund. They use technical analysis for entry, have people continually monitoring all fed announcements and meetings, and have fundamental analysts. The fundamental analysts and fed analysis is used for decision making. Technical analysis is used for positioning.

However... They are a bunch of idiots when it comes to trading... They barely outperform the S&P. They still make money even when the markets are falling as long as their fund isn't falling as fast... Hahaha... The only thing that saved them in 2008 was a large bet against the housing market.

I have seen this guy blow his entire 1.6 million bonus in the markets with bad trades...

I don't think most fund managers could ever make it as traders...

Wow, sometimes ya gotta know when to cut your losses.... which, in this case, is the moment you receive your bonus from your real job !!

Yea... To this day he still has a love of those SPX and SPY options. Only applies one positioning strategy. Vanilla single strike directional...

I have daytraded those SPY options but honestly equities futures are so MUCH better...

I know someone who worked in a hedgefund too. The desk trader who actually places and manages trades has 3 bosses: a chief trader who's job is to kill him if he took a bad risky trade, a chief technical analyst who gave out his indicator-filled charts daily, and a chief market analyst who gave out his daily economic and fundamental report. The desk trader actually earns a salary, plus bonus. His fear of losing trades (client's money) is not as great as a retail trader because at the end of the day, he still get paid very well and complained about a bad trading day in a posh Chicago bar.

What indicator the hedgefund trader actually use, is rather irrelevant, compared to the hedgefund's touted investment model and proprietary strategies.

This dude is not very funny. All I see is a bunch of BS in every thread.

I will explain the joke. Hedge Funds trades are absolutely crap at trading. Worse than retail traders.
Simply put, they last longer because they have more money and are a bit more serious. In the end = zero.

Well... 90% of the hedge fund industry has underperformed the S&P 500 in recent months, but there are some hedge funds that have had solid 10%-20% yearly gains on average over the last ten to twenty years.

Some quants manage 20-30%/year... And, there are private funds nobody knows about that do even better.

I see a lot of good post in this thread for a change. (including the joke .. :-) )
The Hedge Funds world is sooooo way different then trading forex.
Unlucky, most forex traders take all the educational material from the regulated markets and try to apply it to forex. From the psychological, to strategies to indicators. .. and then wonder why does not work.

Hedge funds, are called like that because is a "Fund" (a lot capital put togeheter) and "hedge" because they hedge the crap of anything and everything. And contrary to general believe of forex traders, they do not deal much with currencies.

I recommend that all forex traders should watch the documentary Million Dollars traders. Not because they will learn how to trade forex.. but just to realize that hedge fund world is diffrent.

Obviously, there is some principles that apply to all markets.
Those principle are:
a)If you are scare of triggering a trade, you are not ready or dont have what it take to trade.
b)If you do not risk, there is no possibility to make money,
c) Using all the margin available is a mortal sin.
d) To increase equity, must remain in the market continuously.
The more we over analyze and wait for perfect conditions, time goes by
and month end with nothing.
e) Never operate without a hedge. (in that world a hedge is something like diversify the risk into similar or opposite assets)

In my forex trading trading I take e) literally... I do not close my purchases.
I buy the opposite. It is uncomplicated and cheap.

This accomplish e for sure.. but also a, b, d... and I do act wisely with c.

Watch it, you will see what I am talking about.

Million Dollars traders, part 1
http://youtu.be/v6ciY8u04Kk

J.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuCCeLlodkk

To answer your question, it depends on the hedge funds.
I've been working in one of them. Some guys were trading using EW analysis, while other were trend traders without any specific indicators.

You can find different kind of HF traders, from technical to fundamentals.
You will find chartists trading with EW, MACD, Ichimoku, or quants trading with algos, or fundie traders using macro news to take mid-long term positions.

The only purpose is to make money...isn't it, so who cares about "indies or not"