A longer clarification, because we get the question often. The short version is in the title. The slightly longer version explains exactly what kind of entity Defam AG is, what we do, what we do not do, and why the distinction matters more than the marketing of most financial websites would suggest.
- Defam AG is a self-trading entity. We trade our own capital. We do not accept, pool, manage, or advise on external client money.
- We are not a regulated financial intermediary because there is no client relationship that would require us to be one.
- Everything published here is practitioner writing, not investment advice. Nothing is a recommendation.
- We publish because we like to write and we think the perspective is uncommon, not because we are selling anything downstream.
What we are
Defam AG is a Swiss self-trading entity. The capital we trade is the entity's own capital. The decisions are made internally by the people who own the firm. There is no investor base, no fund structure, no managed-account product. The trading desk, the algorithms, and the capital all sit inside one entity.
Because there is no client relationship, there is nothing for a financial intermediary regulator to regulate. The Swiss regulatory framework, like most others, regulates the relationship between a firm and its clients — not the act of a firm trading its own money. We sit cleanly outside that perimeter by design.
What we are not
We do not accept client funds. We do not pool capital. We do not manage discretionary mandates. We do not run a signal subscription service. We do not operate a copy-trading product. We do not run a fund, a feeder, a sub-fund, or any other capital-pooling vehicle.
We do not sell trading software, paid courses, mentorships, or 'mastermind' communities. We do not run referral or introducing-broker arrangements with the brokers we review. If we ever change any of these statements, the change will be on this page in writing, dated, and visible to everyone.
“If you arrived here expecting a fund prospectus or a signal subscription, you are in the wrong place. If you arrived here because you are curious about how a small, technology-driven self-trading firm actually operates, you are in the right one.”
What the writing on this site is
The articles, broker notes, education material, and service descriptions on this site are practitioner writing. They reflect how we operate our own book. They are not investment advice, recommendations, or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold any instrument. Where we describe a strategy, an instrument, or a venue, we are describing our own experience and judgement, not a recommendation for any reader.
We publish because we like to write, and because the perspective of a small self-trading firm is uncommon in the public conversation, which is dominated by funds selling distribution and educators selling courses. The site is part of our written record. It is not a funnel.
Why this distinction matters
A meaningful share of financial content on the open web is written by people whose business model depends on the reader becoming a customer downstream. The advice is shaped by that incentive whether the writer notices or not. The framing, the choice of strategies highlighted, the omissions — all of it bends in the direction the business model requires.
We have no such downstream business model with anyone reading this site. That does not make our writing right; it just removes one specific source of distortion. We think readers should know which source of distortion they are dealing with on any financial site they spend time on, including this one.
This piece is practitioner writing from a working self-trading desk. It is not investment advice. Defam AG trades only its own capital — see the disclosure page for the full statement.