OK. I know what you're thinking' (Magnum P.I.) Any schmuck who trades for a living and doesn't get paid deserves the screwing for being so dumb. Well Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse Me!!! (Steve Martin) So you have to ask yourself, is this guy starting this thread unlucky? Do ya? (Dirty Harry very loosely) So what would you do? What would you do? (The guy that Dennis Hopper played in SPEED..whatever his name was....wait, I could be wrong..maybe he said "what DO you do?..well someone will correct me.) Let's say, hypothetically that you are a stockbroker and hating it. But you dig trading, and you think you are good at it. OK, become an "Elite Trader"...obviously!! But stop right there!!!!! (Meat Loaf) OK, the quotes are getting annoying even to me, so they must be horrific to you! No mo'...I promise! Back to the stop thing. Hold on, so you can't be an Elite Trader because you have a young wife and a little baby and no money and you need an income. What will you do? (now notice I almost totally refrained from the obvious Eisley Bros. and Karl Maldon comments..I am getting better). Now you are unhappily brokering away, when you stumble upon a client, totally by accident, another story for another time, who trades like a wildman. You are making great money. He is making great money. But the firm you are working with decides he is too wild. So you have to close the account, which costs you a few grand a day in commissions. Now you are back to being a second year schlep broker again. And hating it. One day, months later, the guy who was making you rich calls you at home and says "&%$# working retail, why don't you set up a trading company and I will supply the money and offices and the technology that generates the trades, and we are on our own. I will pay you a $300,000.00 salary (gives you an airtight contract). And as you can see from the contract, the more we make, the more you make. Meet me in Chicago, and we will finalize with the lawyers of your choice, who will also represent the new corporation we will form." Oh, and also, he is going to pick up your rent in Chicago. Now this sounds pretty good. But your wife says she's nervous about it (I know this is particularly hard to imagine for those of you who are married). She is happy where she is (not Chicago) and has a life. And a job that she worked very hard to get. Now to make this short (if it;s not too late), I went, I signed, I worked, I got paid a little, and I got f**ked for the big money. Never mind the details for now. Here is my question: What would[/b] YOU have done? Would you have done Chicago and traded a $40mm account for a wildman? Or would you have stayed nice and cozy in your nice new but modest house in a nice town near a nice city near the mountains with your nice young wife and baby? Don't be too swift to vote. This should take at least a little thinking. You know what happened to me, but did I calculate my risk properly? Or not? And do we agree that risk management means everything? I am truly curious how many would have gone my route, and how many would have proved smarter. Thanks, Menace
"One day, months later, the guy who was making you rich calls you at home and says "&%$# working retail, why don't you set up a trading company and I will supply the money and offices and the technology that generates the trades, and we are on our own" i wouldnt have gone unless i could have figured out why he needed me in the first place.if hes a hot shot trader why does he need you? i dont get it. what was his explaination?
Not sure what the point of discussing this in hindsight is but I'll go along with it. I would assume from the small details provided that your big trader lost even bigger money and was unable to fulfill his side of the contract. What was his reason for bringing you into the deal? If it was for your trading advice what type of results did you provide? As far as leaving the brokerage business I could not blame you. Speaking from experience, I think most any offer that takes you away from the sales side of the financial industry is worth taking.
ah, some very good points raised by you guys. You can always tell an Elite Trader by their intelligent questions. At least most Elite Traders. Maybe I will talk about this very subject if the thread continues. But not right now. Airtight contract: Well let's just say that a company that has a lot of financial resources can always renege on a contract it has with a party that does not have the means to afford a legal fight. Especially if the company is run by con men. Which was the case. What did they need me for? Like I said, they were con men. But ostensively, they needed me because I knew how to get a trading company started. Or perhaps more accurately, they had the confidence that I was motivated enough to figure it out. Doesn't take a rocket scientist. Just determination, and a lot of phone calls. ALSO, they were not in the United States. I was. They preferred staying out for tax reasons. Too complicated to explain the intricacies, but I assure you, the lawyers had me convinced that everything was proper (and remember, it was me that found and retained the lawyers albeit with their money). And they needed someone stateside to run the company. Additionally, I had a thorough understanding of the style and methods of their trading. Not many brokers did. None in my office of about 40 (which contributed greatly to how I actually came to have the account in the first place). Oh, and the part about the company losing...well they cooled down, but they still made millions with me at the helm, which was a total of about 8 months, so no matter how you figure it, they made money, I earned my bonuses, and it was just more profitable for them to screw me out of mine. So give me your thoughts. I have been beating myself up about this for a pretty long time. And the funny thing is, I now understand that what I went through is not that uncommon. I truly think that at a certain level, it starts to get harder and harder to get compensated in a completely, let's say "predictable" way. Thanks for you input. The Menace
Pretty close. Yeah, they were laundering money alright. But how could I know then? Obviously if I did, none of this would have happened. So does that come into consideration towards an answer to the original question? Menace
"Pretty close. Yeah, they were laundering money alright" well if i was in your shoes and they screwed me out of money and i knew they were doing things that were against the law i would drop a dime on them.
Well I thought about that. I was tempted to go to the IRS, which was the only thing I think I could have done. But these guys scared me. They were too dangerous to screw with. But knowing that now is irrelevant I think. I mean we now know I got screwed. So looking back, it's easy to say I did the wrong thing. But the question is, was it the wrong thing when I did it? Menace
Did you ever have an inkling that your deal was too good to be true? Why did they need you to move to Chicago? I think you should write a book. It sounds like an interesting story. Kind of like "The Firm".