I've been enjoying the board for a couple of months, finally decided to become a member due to an unexpectedly accelerated need for help.
I own a small graphic design/desktop publishing company near the Jersey Shore, and have been quietly preparing to transition to trading professionally over the next 1-2 years. My plan was to take my time, study, slowly absorb the movement of the markets and construct a sound and profitable trading methodology. (I do have experience trading futures and options, and have had pretty good success.)
However, I was just notified yesterday that one of my company's biggest clients is going to be outsourcing all of their print production work to India. While this will not ruin my business, it may do enough damage to cause me to speed up my learning curve and want to trade sooner.
I was meaning to ask eventually, and now is the time: are there any successful professional traders in New Jersey (or even NY or Philly) who would be interested in doing some serious mentoring?
I appreciate any interest that's out there. If you'd like, either reply here or send me an e-mail and we can discuss off-board.
Figured I'd get a bit more specific about what I'm requesting.
I would be interested in talking to a highly successful professional trader in New Jersey - or really, anywhere from CT to DC, within a couple hours' commute - who has been trading full-time at least 3-5 years, who would enjoy having a hungry, motivated individual sit in with them periodically and learn trading from them. The process would consist of weekly meetings, phone conversations, and e-mails, and the time spent would be limited. I would guess the duration would be about 3-6 months total.
My background is in futures and options, and I am not averse to trading the S&P E-Minis only. I would lean toward stocks, though, because I like the idea of being able to scan thousands of stocks and find repetitive patterns that I can consistently use to make money. (In some ways, I'm still in the stocks vs. futures phase, and could go either way.)
As I wrote earlier, I was planning to do this over time, and teach myself, but circumstances are pushing me to move faster than planned. Any help I can get from the right person will be enormously appreciated.
you might want to just open an account at a professional and/or daytrading firm where you can work part-time until you're ready - and there are more shoulders to look over there.
Thanks, I appreciate the response. Bright is supposedly going to be opening up a branch in Red Bank later in 2002, about 30 minutes north of me, and that is an option I've been considering - although the 25K startup money is a bit of an obstacle. I've also been in contact with a group in North Jersey called Domestic Securities, but need to look into that further - it would require me to relocate to North Jersey. I don't know of any other firms close enough to me to make commuting feasible.
Ideally, I would like to set up a trading station from home and get private mentoring - I already have a DSL line and a good amount of office space, and am preparing to get a PC and multiple monitors (right now, as a graphic design guy, I'm working on a Mac G4).
I am also planning a visit to Bright's Cherry Hill location to see what a prop firm actually looks/feels like. I've spoken to the manager of that office, and he has been a big help.
Anyway, thanks again for your response - it's good to get your input.
