Yes Don really did make both of those statements. While it was about 10 years ago and during the days when his parking lot was full of young guys driving jeeps, I wondered how this guy could believe that it would continue when the guys that were paying all those fees and commissions were busting out right and left. At the time I couldn't help but think - wow this fool is really selling hard to make such foolish and ill-informed statements. And now his time has come and him and others like him are lost - no more sheep to shear or at least much fewer and I would be happy to bet that the attrition rate was much worse than only 1 in 20, and if it wasn't - where are they today? What little edge these guys had is gone, the industry is in steep decline and these guys with no useful method or technology have burned out so many that the supply is less and they are reduced to producing crap like what I heard today. They bragged about it being free - no wonder, it is was nothing more than a poor sales pitch and offered negative value because besides being useable content free it wasted the atendees' time. Once these guys had a small edge and a big name, now in my opinion thay are reduced to being among the legions of snake oil salesmen that plague the industry and prey on the unaware. If they recorded this afternoon's pitch my guess is that he wouldn't dare post the link as I believe the resulting storm would kill what little business he still gets. Jack
OK, well 10 years ago. I really don't think Don would make that statement today. All joking aside I don't think Bob touches stock anymore. I believe he only trades futures. The biggest issue Don has in the equity world is that the business is just so over regulated. Not much he can do about that. The other issue is that the equity business has become a technology business and that is where the edge is. Not in discretionary trading. We've debated this at length on here so won't re-hash all that. I'll tell ya one thing. Not easy keeping an equity shop open with VIX in the teens.
Good Post Maverick, thanks. I don't think the biggest issued faced by Don and the like is about being over regulated, although he and the rest of us certainly are, I think it is that all he really had to offer as an edge was a bit better look at the book - now that edge is gone and during the prop shop halcyon days he and others of the same ilk never developed the methods or technologies to give their traders a lasting edge. In different terms it seems that they never learned that it was better to feed and shear their sheep because they only get to skin them once. cheers Jack
When I say over regulated, I'm talking about the fees traders have to pay. It's ridiculous. It turns a lot of guys away from prop. A fee here, a fee there. Then there's the exam's, stupid rules, etc. The only edge Don or any equity firm offered was leverage. And obviously leverage is not an edge. We'll just call it an advantage over a retail account. When I traded stock 10 years we had bullets and bullets were a real edge. When bullets went away, that was pretty much it for the point and click trader. Now all the edges are on the HFT side and Bright and all the other deposit firms just can't compete with that. So you hear people like Don and SMB talking about holding stuff "long term". We use to call these investments. LOL. Now to be fair to Don, they do allow you to lever up long term trades which is an "advantage" over retail. Again, an advantage, not an edge.
I believe he trades the e-mini and intra-day only. He seems to trade options longer term. Another product not allowed at Bright.
I guess I missed the line that daytrading stocks is dead. I have been trading more on the futures side for the last 10 years than equity side. This last year I have traded more equities than futures. I have roughly 10 stocks I watch daily, and carve out a piece of at least one of them most days. The futures side has been more a pile of crap of late to me than stocks. I have gone from the indexes to crude and the euro early in the day. Still mostly I have traded stocks, and I am retail. I dread my Sched D next year, but I'll deal with it. Maybe the HFT stuff is making the stocks I follow move enough for little old me to make coin in between their runs. Whatever, it is working until it doesn't and I will move to the next product. I have wondered if my edge is that I am looking at simple ideas to take pieces of the range instead of wasting time and money developing algos to play too many stocks.
Well, a nice lot of information and mis-information, LOL. Bob made millions last year ($12 mil about) trading emini's - this year is more focused on SPY vs. emini's. I have never said "no one makes money trading futures" - I have said that our history, with our traders over the years have done better with equities. We do our best to translate futures trading to SPY's for several reasons. And, regulatory issues, you bet. I have spent all morning with our Compliance responding to issues. All part of the game. I only invited our top 20 traders to speak yesterday, and actually held one back for an internal workshop (we allowed a few from ET in yesterday). I actually learned some new things from Hank Camp as well. The whole program trading thing needs to be understood, IMO. 2 new transfers from other firms today, after listening in, another decided to come here instead of another firm because "he likes the idea of having a Firm that actual interacts with their traders" - made me feel good, we work pretty hard at all this. The "daytrading is dead" comment was referring to the full penny scalping concerns from HFT, we still have many who do nothing but day trade. Depending on account size, we find more are holding longer term, hedging their positions overnight with SPY's or something, and getting 20 or 30 to one overnight leverage....seems to be working. We also brought up Dodd-Frank which may actually help our traders since we won't have as much "competition" from investment banks etc. All the best, Don
This part I agree with. No software is going to teach anyone to trade or provide an edge, especially if it's given to you. Nobody gives away edges. If Don had any software that provided an edge, his brother would trade the shit out of it and it would not be given out for free on a webinar. LOL. I just think he does a poor job marketing these webinars. I don't think they are meant to teach anybody anything or give away secrets, I think they are meant more to provide very general info for guys that are really green. Don is in marketing after all and that is his job.
thanks don for the invite. i listened in. i didnt hear anything offensive. i agree that in this market most of us have to lengthen our holding times.