atlast or you are not on the money. in the end i.e. last six months to a year were breakeven on prop traders. worldco was not running traders through like cattle. firm was shrinking # of traders from 800 to 400 traders. their deals were ridiculous in order to keep up with competition and they used trading division as a cash cow in a desperate attempt to fund IT project.
Do traders in their Jersey City office mostly trade Nasdaq? Does anyone know if trading Nasdaq Vs. NYSE is easier because of fills and lack of criminal specialists?
No, because instead of "criminal" specialists, you have even bigger criminal market makers. And specialists aren't really that bad taken as a group.
really- in old days we use to say that specialists would sell their mothers for a teenie. specialists are nice guys that is why they got fined hundreds of millions of dollars. specialists and mm are cut from the same cloth. when going gets tough specialist back away from making an orderly mkt, front run orders etc. any specialists members of your family or your friends? just for sake of disclosure
Not at all. I have no connections to any specialists whatsoever, and I trade just the same way you do (if you mainly trade intraday). And I know that some specialists are complete jerks, which is why I usually avoid those guys, but for investors the specialist system is the best. For daytraders each system has its advantages and disadvantages. But the MMs are generally worse, and the lack of accountability on the Nasdaq is far worse, as is other opportunities for manipulation (such as the last minutes spraying on NAS to influence closing prices that prompted an indexes to stop using the Nasdaq closing prices). And the fine that you talked about (which was easier to assess due to accountability than the fines assessed MMs, who are able to get away with much more since there are so many more of them and since they are less accountable) are simply a reflection of the NYSE not enforcing its existing rules. Once the NYSE does that, there will be nothing anyone can reasonable complain about.
hi, I joined hold bros at the begining of the year. I have to honeslty say I am very comfortable with the firm. It is a very fun and lively environment in the ny downtown office. I have not been to the other branches yet. The executions are very good and the rates are excellent. The office may give the impression as being skeleton but that actually makes me feel better, knowing that all of my equipment has already been paid for and is not paid for in monthly installments for outragous prices. I have 3 monitors and I don't care that they are not flat screens, I can afford my own if I really want them. The office is very lax, I can leve when ever I want, no one would ever say a word to me. The heads of the firm are very nice and easy to talk to, I can even call them at home if I need to. There software for executions is excellent and has many features. My only quarrell is that AT Financial is shutting down and the firm is switching to eSignal which is full of cool features, however is missing basic things that makes it unusable.
http://www.holdbrothers.com/joiningup_3-7.html this is not a pro firm, is it, or is it a mixed retail and pro-firm?