Which do you prefer, to trade on your own or to for a firm? What is the salary that would make u work for yourself vs the firm? 100k?. 500k? I never traded for a firm but wondering how people feel about what the ideal trading position is for an average profitable trader. thanks!
Well your always trading for someone unless you trade commission free. To me it doesn't matter its about who offers me the best commission deal. And right now a firm provides me with that so call it working for a firm or working for yourself it comes down to how much money you can save and add to your profits.
i've done both. presently i'm working for myself. it pretty much boils down to your personality and what you want to do with your self. big firms take away a lot of hassles of equipment, clearers, money. But equally so add hassles of dealing wih people, restrictions on time, and processes. Working for yourself allows more freedom, more money in your own pocket if you are sucessful, more stress. For me, i would not go back to working for a big firm unless i really screwed up. but thats just my personality.
I work for firm and still have those options I can come and go as i want and also could trade from home when I want and keep most of my money so it really depends what firm your with.
I have similar question: I have 25K and I'm about average with trading experience. I make a small amount of profit right now due to low capital with a non-direct access retail account. I need more leverage to have about 100K of capital to make more profit. Should I go and work with a prop firm to get the leverage with deep commission or should I open a direct access account and work for myself? Anyone know of a good direct access account with good commission and some interest-free leverage that I can work for myself with this account? Anyone know of a good prop shop with low commission and high leaverage? I would benefit more on per-trade commission rather per-share, but with low per-share commission, I would still be able to make significant profit. Thanks
i used to work for a broking firm as a principal trader (not as a broker or as an order operater for others) for 7 years. we were paid a salary and then a percentage of what we made. it was a great way to learn. using someone elses money, equipment and processes. you knew if it all went pear shaped you really only lost your job. Now working for myself (for the last 5 years) its the opposite. you keep most of the money take all the risk and have no security of a salary. its great but i'm sure there are also alternatives somewhere in between all these. What it really boils down to is what you want to do. if you can find what bluff trader has go with that. i highly recommend using other peoples money to train with. that way you get paid to learn. Fortis clearing look after a lot of individual traders world wide, but you need a substantial amount of initial capital to get started. other than that it seems you need to use a margined account either throuh an equity broker, or use futures and forex for the extra leverage.