I think you guys are being somewhat unfair. At some point people have to be responsible for themselves. The choices we make in life are what define us as individuals. The 80 yr old grandma who is willing to put up 20k to "get rich quick" is going to lose that money eventually whether prop, retail, or some mlm scheme. A fool and their money are quickly parted. I say let the 80 yr old grandma to join up. It is her choice. By joining a prop she is accessing specific tools to operate in the market as it fits her business model. Sure, through the association of the prop she is offered educational and tech support (as any membership or professional group would); however, she is responsible for what she does with those tools. If she has no business model, TS. Note, the prop is only providing a service. Ignore me, I'm a retail whore... :eek:
Not going to rain on my parade. I've been on the retail future side for awhile now and have seen the leverage increase via margin requirement reductions. Same thing you can keep throwing good money into a bad plan, or no plan and lose just the same 1 contract at a time. I guess thats where I would see Brights stepping back, but maybe I'm wrong. I get the impression they aren't going to keep you around if you burn through your cash, maybe they would, I don't know for sure. I don't want to mislead anyone, I fully get that the Brights are in business, and they are in it to make money, but my read from all the posts is they aren't quite as evil as everyone makes them out to be. Maybe I'm wrong, I just had my birthday on 6/6/06 so maybe I'm just evil, and evil loves company.
With all due respect your "buddy" must have been a horrible trader to lose $75K trading that small. When I first started trading similar size I felt it was easy as I made money from week 1. Only as I increased size did I find other challenges. And one learns as they evolve as a trader to make the required changes if they want to survive. As far as your training reference ... there's also a big difference between an education at Harvard and some local 2 year community college. And last, you don't need to sit down next to a great trader to learn how to trade. Maybe some people do but not all. Some people come into the game with knowledge. Plenty of self made traders just as there are in many other professions in life.
A lot of people go to "name institutions and walk away with nothing. Fine visisble examples would be numerous politicians. Not to say they don't truly have more resources to offer, but the individual has to put in the effort to get the most out, as with trading. I didn't mean to imply that the Brights trading was all I needed to grasp the equity side of trading. Obviously a 1 month program can't go in depth, but it can give me an idea of what to look for more quickly than going it alone. I'm fully aware that screen time is critical, as I have, and still put in plenty with my futures trading. At least with some training I may have a better idea of what to look for as I'm growing my knowledge. I would love to sit next to a succesful equity trader while getting a handle on how the specialists work, and how to read the tape, but as you say it's not to easy to find those people anymore.
I think that people who put effort in can learn in the class if study material is good. No beginner without connections will ever gets to sit with a great institutional trader. You are saying it like one can just go and pick from great traders waiting to teach. Almost impossible to happen.
Just a comment about Mav's "Goldman" and "Susquehana" traders....I totally agree, new traders there are employees, not independent, and the absolute best way for GS to make money is to have their better people teach new people...just like in any type of employment....take your best sales guy, accountant, even a retail clerk, and put the new people next to them. It is a bit different in the independent world obviously...the best Subway sandwich franchisee is not going to teach his competitor at Quizno's how to reach the best audience for their products. On the other hand, if that successful Subway guy wants to double his empire, he will train someone of course. All we try to do is speed up the learning curve by a few months... there is no one, not even my brother, who can teach someone to be successful...but in a month we can certainly help traders avoid a lot of "newbie" things that everyone seems to go through... it seems to work, based on our retention and profitablity numbers for those who have gone through training. I pull some of my best traders (and high volume traders at that) away from trading to work with the boot campers....it costs us $$ in volume, and it costs the traders $$ in profits...and this is partially offset by the $1500 (for 4 weeks time) fee charged, which seems pretty fair for all involved. They even get "one on one" time, which is a rare commodity, as this post points out. (One more day until I head off the London and Paris for the World Poker Tour Finals....looking forward to having some fun). I have an assignment from the magazine (TASC) to interview the big whigs at Euronext...I'll keep you guys informed about anything that seems of special interest. If anyone has specific questions they would like answers to, please PM me. Adieu for now, Don
Wow, what a jetsetter. Don, if I may ask... what is the motivation for your top traders to work with your boot campers? Altruism? They just can't wait to give away their edge? I can't imagine a piece of the boot camp funds is ample motivation for your multimillionaire traders to take that much time away from tick-fcuking.
Yeah, my "buddy" was a bad trader. He didn't lose 75k in a week, he just hung around awhile because he was a Princeton grad and didn't know how to accept failure. My point was to illustrate the idea that if you only trade a few hundred shares at a clip, that you can lose a lot of money. It adds up very fast. Knowledge? WTF are you talking about? You think it takes knowledge to make money. Oh jesus, If only that were so. If that were the case, that "knowledge" could be packaged and sold to millions. Give me a break. Obviously another newbie fresh off the seminar circuit and probably has a copy of the latest TA book by his bedside. Yeah, keep searching for that knowledge, that's all it takes. No, I think the word you were referring to was an edge, knowledge is worthless.