If you know someone moved from Bright to Echo, do you know the reason? If you know someone moved from Echo to Bright, could you also put down the reason?
at the risk of inflaming the owners, traders and the "community", your question not only is direct to the point, but doesn't produce what you're ultimately seeking, which is affirmation / confirmation of "individual" choice. Individual choice weighs factors: .. like convenience to your home (commute time), .. quality of peers (fellow traders available at that office), .. style (whether you fit into the atmosphere or not), .. pricing (commission costs vs. trading volumes), .. services (advanced trading tactics and support to do them), .. timing (what seems right at your point in time). These are all highly subjective (individual) choices, of which some influence is derived from these discussion boards. However, when you commit millions to building a firm, which takes on your own personality, and then have it derided without basis (sometimes with basis), then you can understand the responses that the owners have weighed in on. I'm in reference to Don Bright, Gene Weisman, and other seniors/owners of their firms. Might I suggest that we clarify/classify our comments to those "individual" subjective decision factors, as outlined above. That way, all those reading the responses can either identify with them or not, but at least their comments will have some "residual" value, instead of just steam being blown off.
So far, I have looked at all the threads regarding Bright & Echo. It seems like more people prefer Echo than Bright due to lower capital requirement & no 25% mendatory deposit. I even read Bright is rough on traders. In 5 -10 years, Do you think Echo will be more popular? Well, who knows....Your guess is mine, too.
Which of the two companies would be considered the most financially stable. Should financial stability be the most important factor for class B members.
that's a personal question, which has to be asked to those firms respectively. They might boast of their $250M excess capital or not, however, I'm sure that they'll want to know significant volumes about whom they're talking to. If you have size account, then you should be worried about SIPC customer/retail protections, not professional/proprietary trading. If you persist, then it would be prudent to "consider" starting and maintaining small size at or under $100k in these accounts. Of course, should you become or return to profitability, then you might want to actively pair that principal at that cap instead of keeping large sums on balance, hence at risk.
If you don't need a bushel of capital, the only real concern you should have is the firm's risk management system, execution and analysis technology, and prices. Prop shops with automated AND human risk control are the best choices.
does anyone know how well echo is capitalized. They seem to offer a tremendous deal, and if they are well capitalized than it must be the best firm to work for. Any comments?
I thought I would stayout of this thread for obvious reasons, but I just wanted to say that I totally agree with the person who said to do your research, check the facts, not the hype (from any entity that you're going to do business with), and listen to some common sense. Again, competition is good for the industry, and these other firms have given Bright Trading a great boost in modifying our whole structure, so we can keep the competitive edge we have enjoyed for so long. I really only wanted to say that I don't think we are "hard" on traders, I think we do a pretty good job with all of our people. Sometimes everyone needs a bit of a nudge in the right direction, and all we strive for is success from our traders. So, since Echo, Bright, L &W, and the others are all part of a very small community, let's just make good decisions and trade well. Rememberl, we are competitors, not enemies!
since you started this thread, I'm not sure the replies were what you desired... where do you or your conclusions stand, based on the replies.. Its only fair that we expect a detailed response to your initial thread....
Regardless of which firm you trade with, I recommend you keep your account balance at the absolute minimum. No matter how solid a firm is, disaster can strike (ie Baron's). If the firm has a 10K minimum, then look at what you might expect your worst run or drawdown to be... say maybe $5000. OK, then keep $15000 in your account. Everytime you get above that, have the excess wired to you. I recommend using the buffer so you don't have to do too much wiring of funds back to them. This should not be a problem for the firm if they really aren't relying on trader's capital. This shouldn't be a problem for you unless you hold overnight, then you'll incur margin and haircut charges. But then again, I'm strictly a daytrader - flat at the close. If you make $1000/day and follow this strategy, in the case of catastrophe, the worse you'll be out is 3 weeks worth of work (based on $10K required minimum).