i'm looking for 299 of the best prop traders to form the best prop trading group in the industry. i'm a prop trader, have over 15 years in futures, options, stocks, some spot forex (zero-sum game mostly). i've got ten years in silicon valley under my belt. two ipos. two vc funded startups. two kids. a divorce. i've got scars, and i know how to trade and how the markets work as well as anyone can test me. and no one, not even my own mother, can shake my confidence, not even when i'm dead wrong. i will be the first to admit it and the last man out the door until i fix it. i trade about 18 hours a day. i'm researching the idea of forming a new prop trading group based in NYC different from what i know exists with assent backed prop shops. here's the premise: every trader brings $25K in to meet day trading requirement. neophytes bringing in $5K will be leveraged to match the lowest capitalised trader in the pool, and risk-adjusted to match their ability and matched with the top trader. bottom learns from the top. every trader gets their 7 and 55. leveraged to 20:1 intraday. directEDGE clearing same rates for every trader, regardless of volume, daily volume is pooled within the group, not by separate trader account, with rebates kicked back into profit pool for endofmonth distribution according to percentage ownership in the partnership. LLC partnership format according to capital contribution to pooled trading capital. no desk fees, no rogues walking around thinking they can trade outside the system, everyone is in at 8am and out at 5pm or go somewhere else. this is a job where once your money goes in the pool, you answer to everyone, not just your own p&l. but even if you're at the bottom of the list for the month, we will make sure you make your rent and eat. one for all and all for one. i'd like to be at $100M+ volume a day, 1M shares a day within three months. not unreasonable considering i churn 1,000 shares of AAPL at a time all day in .20 cent increments. not that complicated. i would like to take the company public within one year. what's somewhat different is we're trading as a unit, like spartans, every trader works within the designated strategy of the day, week, month, according to set meeting decisions three times a day. morning, lunch, close. overnight is tbd as this is mostly an intraday strategy. we're going to invest heavily in outside news and filtering technology to do the heavy lifting of finding major movers. however, the primary focus of the group is financials and tech. this means, AAPL, GOOG, FSLR, BIDU, C, BAC, GS, JPM, PNC, WFC, all the major ETFs, we are in and out of these all day, en force, generating profits consistently with options hedging our combined positions on a real time basis. this function will become more automated over time. and mentoring is mandatory. every experienced trader will be required to mentor a no-nothing cocky college kid with more money than balls. what we need: a few analysts who want to become traders. traders who want to be part of a bigger pool of capital to exponentially increase profits, reduce mistakes, reduce individual risk, minimise life stress by having a stronger support system in place for decision making and the consequences thereof (i.e. less chance of blowing out, increasing profitability by reducing risky emotional decisions), and working within a common goal. none of this churn and burn bullshit i keep seeing across the industry. none of this crap where the guy next to you is shouting out to go long when a stock hits its resistance line and tanks two minutes later, none of this going short bullshit on financials when warren buffett is announcing a multibillion dollar investment in WFC. and no buying into AIG or GM because you think you can make a quick 10 cents. a managing director that isn't trading, who has managed a top firm trading floor, someone older, who has the emotional and mental discipline to sit down when problems occur, lead our company with confidence, and develop strategies beyond simple scalping to where the top hedge funds will start throwing money our way to spread out their risk and capitalise on our higher risk tolerances when the markets get heated. what that means is, if we're going all-in short on BAC pre-earnings report, and a thousand other traders worldwide are following our lead because i twitter it preopen, we're driving, not ken lewis. watching jim cramer's mad money is recommended, but optional. jim may make some bad calls, but at least he's man enough to admit it on global network television. we're bringing in the top educational trading firms to hold weekly seminars, we're going to have MANDATORY web classes to review skills and learn new ones, and we're going to have report cards and a grading system setup where if you can't tell me why C isn't going down today with the XLF, then you need to do your homework this weekend and come back on monday with the right answer instead of going to atlantic city to play poker, or you're gone. every month, we're going to have a contest, just like glen garry glen ross. one month it's an ducati 848, end of year is an audi r8 (because i know the manager at park ave fairly well) for the top trader, second prize is a can of tennis balls you'll be required to get maria sharapova to sign at the usopen for losing. but if you can get her autograph then you're back in my good graces forever. we're going to cater lunch in every day off seamlessweb, paid by the firm, none of this free friday pizza bullshit. and we're going to have tech support, none of this figure it out yourself, or pester another trader, or weeding through a thousand page help document. just a few ideas... wondering if this will fly. if not, fuck it, i'll stick it out on my own. cheers. rb. ps. scott, if you're reading this, maybe this is your chance to follow through with what we discussed last year...
Assuming this is not a major joke post... It would be a lot more convincing if you didn't have to break the terms of service running a freebie ad, because you could not afford to pay this site their proper advertising fee Ya know???
convincing of what exactly? and why should i care about the terms of service, or pay them an ad fee? for what exactly? the posting clearly states i was merely a suggestion, not anything specifically planned or advertised as a going concern, finra registered or currently existance. i mostly want to see if there are other prop traders interested in creating a new format given the changes in the rules, courtesy of america's new messiah. i have no expectations, short of the expected vicious criticisms and attacks for suggesting something out of the norm. far be it for me to assume i know everything about this business. i'm a trader, not a politician or paper-pusher. rb.
all i know is there are a lot more highly educated, highly motivated individuals out there with little or no job prospects looking at prop trading as their livelihood, who lack the securities industry background, ivy league educations, access to capital, etc. to play in the goldman sachs league, the SAC's of the world are hidden behind closed doors, the blackrocks and jpmorgans of wall street are too highly connected to the treasury to break into without 20 years experience and a letter of recommendation from the president himself, yet in the end, it is the prop traders that en masse are the ones moving these markets. speculation has become the new norm, and it only makes sense that consolidation of these skill sets benefits not only the individual trader, but the markets as a whole in the long run as trading becomes more and more algorithmic. we mere humans can not hope to compete with a game running inside machines. anyone who's traded their own account learns this quickly enough by blowing their mortgage payments going long citibank. rb.
Maybe it would be useful to do some "directed" advertising that is specifically aimed towards the folks being laid off by GM and Chrysler.
that's not the goal of this post. and i already recruit within my own circles. i could grow this internally, albeit much slower, than if i were to post an job ad on efinancialcareers.com. but i doubt any gs or jpm prop desk trader would quit their gigs to go solo, or join a band of privateers in this environment. rb.
or i could just take out a full page ad in the WSJ. both classes are making about the same money right now. rb.
1. Is this a repackaged seat? 2. Are losses offset $1,000,000 / 25,000 2.5% ? 3. Do you force strategies that only expose the firm to twenty minutes in the market at a time?
Thank you atticus. Take a pool of retail traders public,lmao. Mom prolly gave him a video of the 300 Spartans.
Just a few points: adults use capitals when writing; the total number of truly successful prop traders in the entire country is measured in the hundreds not thousands; and as my belligerent but intelligent friend Atticus pointed out you canât tell successful traders what to do, you have to give them whatever they want to stay with you.