Institutional Traders versus Private Traders. Can an Individual Trade as Successfully as an Institution? David Paul, Financial Trader and manager of VectorVest UK comments. If you found value in watching this video, PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE so we can do more! Quite honestly, there is not a great degree of difference when it comes to education. Private Traders are trading much smaller positions; it all comes down to information and self-awareness. The institutional trader will have access to a great deal of fundamental information. There is a great deal of randomness out there; at the level of one trade the market cannot be predicted.