OK, here is a bulletproof setup, let's see if the regulators can think of a way why it should be regulated: The college kids start a system on collective2 and Spectre subscribe to it and autotrade it with HIS 10K and his own broker. The kids are managing only fakemoney, so there is nothing to be regulated and if Spectre decides to give back something of the possible profits, that is his business. End of story.... P.S.: Actually this way Spectre can override the kids trades if he thinks it is necessery...Everybody wins... No charge for the idea....
If the kids can translate their work into a C2 compatible system, it could work. Not all trading methodologies can work well with the web based C2 platform. Best idea is to contact the NFA and structure the business properly if you want it done right vs. trying to find possible loop holes and hope. If he's serious, which appears he is, then do it right. End of story.
I don't need the profits from the trades. I just want to prevent them from blowing it all. And they would have to clear the trades through me and explain the rationale for the trade. I might contact the local university and try to setup up something with their business school. The university can use grant money to figure out the administrative stuff, and I can just focus in on the entertaining aspect of it. If I'm right everyone of the interns would pretty much go through the same behavior patterns and evolution over time. Who knows someone might surprise me. Some universities build mock trading rooms with boards and livefeeds. thanx for the responses. I think a university hedge fund of sorts would be ideal. And each term the students enrolled in the class would be in charge of a certain portion of capital. Chris
WTF are we talking about here? This sounds like nothing more than some kind of 'Turtle' experiment or simply just setting up a defacto 'prop' operation. Funny enough, it actually sounds like you are talking about a true prop scenario where traders would not risk any of their own capital and would receive some portion of the fruits of their labor. I am reading this thread and laughing my ass off how complicated some posters are making their responses and how some are making it seem like this is some kind of never before considered radical experiment. Anyways, not to be a complete asshole........... good luck with things Spectre. I do like your comments about observing the behavior of the traders during the program. It would be an interesting topic for a thread.
"I don't need the profits from the trades. I just want to prevent them from blowing it all. And they would have to clear the trades through me and explain the rationale for the trade" Blow up would be my first concern, you need some sort of risk management. You may want to chat with local prop firms or give them a dollar stop. I think IB allows you to setup sub accounts. Hell, if you train them right you may want to explore a prop model for them.
You'd back a bunch of newbies to trade futures with your own money? Sorry to be the pessimist, but wouldn't such a project be far more likely than not to lose money?
Since the regulators can kiss you ass, you might as well go to China and India and think big. Hire 1,000 traders and pay them $50/month, then after a short time, fire the 90% who don't make money, and hire another thousand traders, because the labor pool is limitless. Globalization is the wave of the future...
You could hire a lot of fresh MBA, more so programmers to design Auto trading. You will not be regulated here because all the traders are not trading local markets & not taking any money from the local investors. But the minimum salary is around $400-500. This will be like a BPO operation. Millions of people here are working here in US/UK hours providing all kind of design,.tech support etc. Even JP Morgan,Merril,Goldman Sach have thousands of employees here supporting US/UK operation. Out of India-I trade my personal account full time out of home mostly trading ES,ER2 ,spy,iwm options & the oil patch. Trading in the night time becomes a bore after a long time & Iam trying to automate. Infact I have considered the same idea here & hire bright young interns & make them strictly follow the trading rules. They might perform well. Of course my trading capital is not yet more than $1mn above which this concept will work. But the original poster wanted the trading operation just near his residnce under his direct supervision I think. I dont know what amount of trading seed capital he was talking about!
This actually sounds really cool. For a while I "interned" at a hedge fund under a trader that i respected. He knew what he was doing... the problem was he didn't care enough to share it with me. Not the greatest experience that I've had... Much more happy trading/learning on my own. I do live a few miles away from the Hershey gang though. I lwant to make it on my own now though... will make it all the sweeter.