Wow! 5 posts and all pumping the same firm. Have you looked at these guys yet? http://www.shilltrading.com/
Not pumping just stating the fact. Ive been with other firms all remote and honestly never got the respect i get from mgb U choose ur firm, i will never oblige but when i hear solo traders need extra deposits and lower than average payouts, i dont agree, cos thats wat i got for couple of years cos i traded remote and solo without bringing millions of shares Anyways everybody has a preference.
I have the same exact deal with Avatar Securities. I am not familiar with equity prop trading though (I trade forex), but am considering the offer. Things I dont get: --why are funds locked for 1 year? Big deterrent for me in case it doesnt work out, and I should know in 6 months --am I really trading with firm money or am I just building up my own 10K account? Could I get 10:1 buying power on my own without the firm --how much money could I realistically expect to make on a 10K account?--if I return 100% then my 10K becomes 20K and I make 10K in 1 year, actually 9K with the cut.
The lock up on funds at a CBSX registered firm is an SEC rule 15c3-1, whereby the firm must treat its capital contributions as "firm capital" otherwise it's treated as a liabilty if they hold it for less than a year. So it helps the firm with meeting its net capital reserve requirements. The firm is giving you access to their buying power which they get from their clearing firm. I don't think you can get 10x buying power on your own, as the maximum is 4 to 1 with a retail account (with 25k in minimum equity), unless you get what's called "portfolio margin" however that requires at least a $100k of minimum equity in a retail firm. How much you can expect will depend on your trading plan, strategy and the ability to manage a trade using 100k of buying power and to work out of a drawdown if necessary, without blowing up your capital contribution. All this stuff was unknown to me less than a year ago, however I've been reading up on things to study for the various exam requirements that will be necessary, including the upcoming exam that will be required when you join a CBSX firm. Hope that helps...
That's actually very helpful. Thanks. On the "how much I expect to make" part, I get what you're saying. Because of the additional buying power, I could make a ton more than what I could make with a retail 10K account.
I believe that the most you can get under PM is 6:1, and even that is no guarantee - depending on the portfolio makeup, you could actually get less than Reg-T 4:1 leverage on your funds.
consider Roy Davis from SMB who I have serious problems with being looked upon as an honest man in his profession. What these guys and T3Live are interested in is getting undercapitalized traders with 10k or20k of equity through their doors charge them 5-10k for training ,lock up a security deposit for 1 year and generate comissions. We all know that 90% of them will not be there after the 1 year for various reasons . Now watch what happens if a well capitalized trader with lets say 3-400K and a SERIES 7 walks through the door. 9 out of 10 times he gets told that they have currently no capacity/space left blah,blah,blah. Now ask yourself why that is. More importantly why would you think that you have a fair chance of making a good living with 10 or 20K equity with lets say 10x1 leverage ?? You guys here need a serious reality check if you think you can spit out tripple digit performance numbers.
I think that's the bottom line---you have to be a superstar trader to make this work out---like you said triple digit performance numbers.
Don`t get me wrong I am still looking myself for an outfit where I can put my hat down but I am well capitalized and I always have to ask myself is it worth it for being in a group environment to give up 10% of your P&L ?? I don`t care about 4X1 or 10X1 because I know what dangerous game leverage can be. The firms I have seen in NY where loaded with people but I don`t know how profitable they are or if most of them just copy cat the head trader or the stock of the day from the A:M meeting. But when I read in this forum how many guys have less than 50K equity and consider following this career path I wonder what they have been smoking.