Just wanted to touch on trading. I've been trading for almost 5 years. Never made 7 figures that people talk about, but I did make low 6 figures in 4 out of the 5 years. It is a fun job of course if you are making money. I would love to go work for a Wall St. firm to learn new things about the financial markets, not just equity market. However, I looked at some sites that were posted on this board (links to sites), and I've seen that an MBA with 2 years experience salary range is between $80k - $160k, most likely with a 60 + hours work week. It doesn't seem so great, if you have confidence in yourself and trading. To top it all off, then you got to worry about job security, a guy next to you gets fired, and you think you are next. It seems kind of horrible to me, and you can not take a vacation whenever you want, ouch.... One more note, I've been told and by looking at Hitmans numbers, my profitability seems average for successful daytraders. Of course the goal is to improve every year and find new strategies, etc.... That's the key to staying successful in prop trading!
don, my point is that you constantly expel the virtues of prop trading, yet that isn't really how you make your living, is it ? from your previous post, you seem to enjoy putting down the comp paid on wall st., yet refuse to give any numbers about your own traders fare. i'm sure the vendors who sell system X that promises a 1000% return, kid themselves into thinking they're in the business of furfilling dreams too.
Again you're totally wrong. I have (and do) report success rates of our traders, within legal boundaries). And I have been "prop" trading since 1979, so I don't get your point. I don't sell a "system" all we do is provide: capital, market access, low costs, and training...and even that is not enough for some people...and some people expect to win the lottery. And....you missed the whole point about the "Wall Street" positions...all I am trying to point out is that there are very few "compensation via performance" positions left...and as my brother likes to say: "...if you can describe your "position" then that "position" probably won't exist in a few years." We have seen the gigantic "cutting" of these middle management/sales/order router jobs in the last few years. So let's try to go back to positive efforts here....and I'll be the first to apologize for "reacting" to your initial post.
Predictor, Are you at a prop firm or trading from home? What do you trade (futures/options/equities) ? What size do you trade on average, i.e., what kind of leverage do you use? What percentage of your equity is on the line each time you trade ? nitro
What is all this bollocks about Don Bright being a leach? You all have double standards, fine for you to trade and to alter values of people's investments but when someone else opens a company, provides a service and does far better than you have you get all jealous and put him down, why would he give a toss about what you have said he has nice car, nice home and is making a nice living, instead of being jealous get off your lazy ass and start making money yourself. You know Richard Branson has just two O-Levels and his first office was a phonebox and got 4000 pounds to start off with loaned to ihm, look what he has done now I bet he did not complain when he was starting out!
nitro - I rethought the earlier post, it was a bit harsh and over the line. In truth, I don't know whether you are an idiot or not, but the statement that "it's not that hard to make $500,000" is somewhat indicative of idiocy, or at least of naivete'. barring extremely good luck, earning that much money is very, very difficult.
Nitro! I trade equities with a prop firm. I'm very risk averse, trade between 300 - 1000 shares a trade now. Before traded 500 - 2000 shares, when we had more volatility, liquidity. Obviosuly intraday I have a lot of leverage and I never calculated how much risk per trade I take on. When we traded in teenies, didn't like losing more than 1/4 point on a trade, now do not like to lose more than .10 -.15 cents. Try to be consistent, but lately it's been much harder to do that.
OK, I respect that, but: I _STRONGLY_ disagree. I know scores of lawyers, doctors, dentists, computer programers, Real Estate agents, System Administrators, money managers, etc, etc. In every instance, the ones that make 1/2 Mil+ a year are the ones that _OWN_ their businesses. One of my Lawyer friends works 90 hour weeks going back and forth from NY to LA to Chicago. He makes upper $3's. I am a client of someone that does the same thing as he does, except he owns his own practice. He makes $7's, and works 60-70 hours a week. I can give you _SCORES_ of examples where equally talented people make disproportionate amount of money - ones is simply a better _BUSINESS_PERSON_THAN_THE_OTHER_ One of the things that I learned (too late) is that how much money you make is not related to how hard you work, but how _SMART_ you work and how you go about maximizing your potential. Not everyone has this talent, but if you were a rainmaker, you'd know what I was talking about. nitro