I am considering associating with a firm in L.A. Andover has several offices in the L.A. area( Pasadena, Encino, WLA) all within a resonable distance to me, any comments on the best office (enviornment, traders, professional atmosphere, managment, etc) would be appreciated. Training is not a consideration for me. If you guys have any other comments on firms to consider in the L.A. area I would be interested as well. I am a retail trader without a series seven, and have no need for firm capital, that is why I am looking at Andover, the only one I am aware of that allows retail traders with their own capital.... Thanks
From what I can gather of Southern California offices for Andover since you asked. the Pasadena office is Bright's ex Arcadia office traders gone echo...gone Andover. That office was a big Opening Orders office which wouldn't benefit you as a retail trader at all. (Unless you are working with 10 million) I'd go elsewhere if you want to stay retail. The LA office that is run by Joe Gitto is rather nice it's on Wilshire Blvd. There are some exceptional traders in that office. I can think of 4 different guys that net $250,000 + easily a month in that office alone. But they trade prop mainly, and nobody really coaches new guys if that is what you are looking for. Cornholetrader or Cornholetrading........something like that is in that office who could tell you more about it. Might want to PM him. This would be my pick for you with what you told the board. I've heard nothing about the other LA office at all so can't give you any info. Stay away from the Irvine office. The 7 of the 10 traders in the office used to work for William O'Neil running his hedge fund. They do not want to share the office with anyone else and the firm is happy let them be considering they average about 10% of MSFT's daily volume. Then there is the Lynx office in San Diego that clears Andover but they have a long waiting list to get in now as they stand out by training their traders with a few high probability strategies.
I trade in the LA office and there are a few traders that had big months like 250K in a month during exceptional volatile months like July. However those were special case months and not the norm. However there are some that trade relatively low risk styles that still pull 40-60K every month. So if you want to be around traders making money it might be a good environment. Nobody sits down and tells you exactly what they are doing, but you said training is not a consideration for you. Most everyone doing well in the LA office is trading NYSE stocks but some do pair, news plays, scalp a few different stocks, position trade, or some other strategies. Once you start talking with traders on a friendship level then it is much easier to discuss trading related strategies. The office is fairly packed right now but they are adding another floor. There is a lot of tech support in the office. I think there are usually 3-4 techs there everyday. Management issues I might leave alone and save for a PM. The Irvine office currently has a few nasdaq scalpers in there that as other have stated are, to be nice about it, real difficult to deal with. The do a lot of volume, but are taken much home as of late. However the problems mentioned by the other posters might be resolved since a new group of traders (sub-LLC and a couple of retail traders) are coming over and they are building a separate wall dividing them and the current traders since it has been near impossible to add traders in that office with the current traders and their egos. The group coming in also has traders doing a little of everything. Some intra position trade nasdaq, some scalp NYSE, ect.