[tamas]

I haven't lost any money on investments in 3 years, and I'm nowhere near being an educated economist. With a diversified portfolio, I could always find an equity to sell above the buying price when I needed money, and this way I could ride out the bear markets without realizing losses.

Of course I'm nowhere near Goldman Sachs in volume (about 6 trades a month on average), just telling that it is actually possible to achieve a "perfect score".

I know Goldman Sachs is not really popular right now among the people, and I have absolutely no intention to defend them, but this seems a bit like a witch hunt.

[biznerd]

This is not a very good analogy.

* You are one individual that averages 6 trades in month . GS has hundreds of traders, many of which do average that amount in a week (if not a day). The law of averages applies to GS, while your experience is anecdotal evidence.

In fact, if after 3 years with an average of 6 monthly trades you haven't liquidated a single negative position I'd say that most probably are making a classic investment mistake - holding onto your losses too long.

* GS trades much more volatile investments than you - futures, derivatives, etc. Traders have a much shorter time-horizon than you as well. You sell when you need the money while they're trying to meet their quarterly numbers.

[tamas]

Wow, apparently I expressed my point poorly, as you guys seem to pick up that I'm advertising how awesome I am and how I kick GS' ass on the markets.

What I wanted to say is that it's hard to find an index that went down during Q3 so those hundreds of traders could actually manage to not lose money but only one day, so that post and the comments really seem to be... subjective and biased.

As your note of my "strategy" being a mistake, I'm actually fine with my results and I'll keep going long, thank you.

[loganfrederick]

You make a good point about comparing their performance to the index. If the market as a whole is rising, and there are always other people willing to take the opposite position of you (or Goldman), it is conceivable that you could only have one negative day.

If this was during a negative quarter for the market as a whole, that'd be a different story. Like the other poster noted, the likelihood that Goldman would consistently be on the positive side of millions of trades for ninety days is probably pretty slim.

[nandemo]

Er, that's not the same thing at all.

They're talking about daily P/L. They realize profit and loss every day. You can't simply ignore all the days when you had (unrealized) losses and still compare with situation described in the article.

[dschobel]

How are they not the same thing but at different time scales?

So maybe GS realizes some loss every day, but surely they hold some positions on longer time frames. They don't wipe the slate after every day.

[nandemo]

Yeah, it's the same thing at very different time scales.

In other words, the standard deviation for 3-year returns is much lower than the daily standard deviation.

You can get a positive return in 3 years without being especially good or lucky. But getting a positive return every single day for 3 months is extremely unlikely.

[mistermann]

Unlikely if you don't have a direct pipeline into the white house and federal reserve.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wall-Street-speed-dial-gets-ap...

[Shamiq]

Interest rate adjusted?