Thanks for sharing that. You're very helpful. So you do research for a bank? Who trades for your bank? Where did they learn to trade? Did they have to put up any risk capital? I doubt it.
Okay, just borrowing from my own "business" experience as a stockbroker, I know there are plenty of companies that are willing to risk some time and money on a newbie. When you take a job at a typical brokerage firm, they pay for most of your licensing and registration fees, they pay to train you, they pay for a list of names and numbers for cold calling, they pay for a computer and a news-feed, they pay for the office space, and they pay a salary or a draw which ranges from $800 to $2,000 per month. Plus they split the commissions with you. AND they take the risk that you could do something reckless or stupid or accidental that costs them a fortune. Companies take risk. That's an essential part of business. Businesses put up the capital and the employees do the labor, and they divide the profits at the end of the day. That's what makes the economy work. Why does this dynamic apply everywhere except the world of prop trading?
i c. well if you're open to that route I can forward your resume to my previous employer. But just food for thought. Ever consider the fact that while working for a fund sounds nice, like everything else, there is some good with the bad. think of the trader/skill set you want to assume. swinging a huge pnl while getting a draw sounds attractive. and thats not a bad skill set to learn. but what if thats the only one you know? say o, your fund/firm blows up like the majority. what then. apply to another firm? sure. but as a trader, i'd hope you'd had the expectations that once profitable, your infrastructural needs didn't require an employer. so now you're on your own. but unless you make a fortune, and depending on what you require to live, you might run into some of the problems folks talk about on this board. people who can't conceive of how its possible to trade a 3.5k account and make 50 g's a year comfortablly, they don't have the requisite skill set. its as much the same as giving the guy who can grind, 100 million bucks....good luck putting that to use in a profitable manner. ("johnny, we've allocated you the funds, put it to use or you're fired"...i don't think theres a bid big enough to get in front of...lol) for me, i've just come to conclude that anyone who thinks they are not living on borrowed time at a prop firm (whether backed or retail) is living a pipe dream. Thats how i've conceptualized this industry, hence my reason for pursuing a style of trading with the lowest capital costs because in my trading ideology, we are all inevitably on our own for some period of time. (this is akin to how naive i was in high school and more recently college, when folks select their desired career/path and just assume its the only one they will ever have. when i came to the realization that that was false (either do to a personal change of heart, or external factors like a periodic economic depression every 30 yrs) I realized that everyone around me who rejected this reality was just living with false expectation; essentially a lie. I guess if I was studying up for my bear I-bank interview or bain gig, I wouldn't want to think about this shit either, lol. (i mean really, how can you think about these possible outcomes when you've got all this narrow minded ambition.)
Oh no, our guys are just salary guys following rules, they don't get profits or anything. Used to be quite a few, not so many any more. c
I think you are asking a bit too much. Ivy League pedigrees and high GPAs are a form of risk management in lieu of capital contributions. Thats why you have firms like First New York Securities, Goldman's and Merrill's etc. If you are not willing to put in the time to qualify under their strict set of criteria (a high price to pay in my opinion when other viable alternatives exist) then your choices are going to be pretty limited. My suggestion is; 1) Learn as much as you can by attending trading courses, reading many books or finding a mentor to take you under his/her wing. Any combination of the above is fine. 2) Paper trade, paper trade, paper trade. 3) Create your own internship (albeit a bit unorthodox) by getting an odd job at night so you can watch and paper-trade the markets by day. (It's what I did so Im a bit of a maverick in this sense) 4) Borrow some money from family or whatever. Open a small retail account (maybe too small to sustain you hence the job at night) and trade live. Get a good feel for live trading and develop your trading intuitions over a time frame that reasonable enough to show that you withstood the test of time. If you make enough money then use your series 7 to join an Echo, Bright , Assent or some prop firm who protect against high risk by requiring a capital contribution. (NO SUB LLC!!! whatever you do) 5) If GS, Merrill etc is still your dream job and goal then...you can now be armed with an audited track record. No guarantees but you stand a better chance of getting some "Ivy League" firm to loosen their grip on the academic credentials in exchange for a proven track record. 5)The "good old boy" network can sometimes help in conjunction with the above. Sometimes it just comes down to who you know but no one in their right mind will hire anyone at all without some measure of risk assessment in play... whether it be an academic pedigree or a recent audited track record, money or some combination of these. Risk is after-all the name of the game. Firms that don't pay heed to risk will not last and neither will any trader (for that matter) Just think....how would I hire if I was in charge of hiring?
The big difference IMO is that in the situation you describe you're an employee of a corporation. Trading is an entrepreneurial venture, you're not an employee of the firm so there's less, if any, motivation for a firm to "fund" you. Why would it be so difficult to put up some money of your own? Put up the minimum required, show them you can be profitable (after some training) and then you'll likely get more BP from them.
try to get into a prop firm work nights until you can be profitable to pay your bills thats how i started it took a while to be profitable but as i look back it was well worth it, you got exp. as a broker thats great but leave that hat at the door because one has nothing to do with the other it will only confuse you, if you really want to trade for a living and committ you might surprise yourself, as far as you not wanting to put up capital who does i didnt want to but i wanted to learn to trade so i guess that choice was easy small investment in retrospect that keeps on bringing in returns month after month year after year good luck
What possible reason could compel a prop firm to be so desperate for traders that they would make the type of deal you've suggested to a newbie?
This all sounds like very good advice. Just to clarify, I completely agree with your first point about Ivy League degrees being a form of risk management for the big firms. And if I had a time machine, I would go back in time to when I was in junior high school and get myself on the Fast Track to career success. The reality is, I didn't know that I wanted to work on Wall Street when I was in high school. I probably didn't even know what Wall Street was when I was in high school. I didn't get "ambitious" until I was in my mid-twenties, which is usually too late. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation now. I wouldn't say that Goldman or Merrill or Morgan are my dream jobs. My goal is to make money. Period. If I can be paid to learn how to trade (or at least NOT PAY to learn how to trade) then that's what I want to do. If I could make $250,000/year working at GS, or $250,001/year trading at my own desk at home in my pajamas, all things being equal, I'd go with the latter. But first, I need to learn how to trade. It looks like I'll be doing it on my own.
Any situation in which you are working on a commission basis is inherently entrepreneurial. This includes stockbrokers, real estate agents, insurance salesmen, hair stylists, strippers, taxi drivers, etc. Trading is very similar, in that you are paid based on your own efforts and your own results. In none of these instances are you truly an employee, nor are you truly in business for yourself. You are more like a subcontractor. So how is trading so different?