I am a senior tecchnologist at a large financial bank in NYC. I have been very successfull in my career but I am ready for big change. I want make a career change into day trading for the flexibility, potential and exciment. Although I have learned much through the years, I am tired of corporate. I have some risk capital but I want to get leverage and fast execution platform(s). I have a few things working against me: - I am a college drop out (no degree) - I have relatively low equities experience (1 yr) - I am new to day trading strategies. I bring many years of technological experience. I like market level trading (Index & ETFs). I seem to be always right on direction bur due to my corporate restrctions on trading I am limited on how and what I can trade. Sucks. But anyway, I started this thread to get some advise on how to join a day trading firm ? Perhaps as a partner to another successfull trader that needs to "technologize" his/her strategies.
if you have risk capital and like trading the markets, open a futures account at IB or tradestation and start trading for your self.
I agree about trading retail futures, but if you still want to do the "prop" thing, education means nothing, nor does experience. If you have the cash to plunk down, and the firm has an open seat, most will happily take you. True prop shops where you trade firm money are entirely different, but doesn't sound like that's what you are looking for.
Don't worry about the lack of experience or college degree. If you have the drive to succeed, you can make it in equities trading. Not sure how much capital you have to put up but it takes quite a bit to be successful in this biz. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking you can do it with just $25k with 4:1 on the retail level; it takes a lot more than that. My recommendation is joining a firm like Bright Trading. They are a notable Prop Firm, provide the leverage to succeed in this biz, plus they offer insight on the different trading strategies that are proven to be successful. Good luck.
Thanks for all your advise. Why do you guys think a futures account would be better than an equities account ? In addition, I been hearing about Assent and Avatar as good firms ? I do have about 30k (already blew 50k in the past 9 months) . How much more do yo think I'll need to make a living? thanks
You need to be realistic about how long it will take you to become profitable. As you are probably already aware, professional trading is a whole different ballgame from what you are probably use to. Don't let anyone tell you any different. If you plan on trading equities, you can start out with 25k as long as you have access to sufficient capital for leverage. Don't know what your living expenses are but when I made the decision to do this for a living, others recommended that I have enough money to last me 2 years. Odds are 1st year will break even and the 2nd, you should start making money. Hope this helps.
I value the above responses and would like to ask another question, as I have a similar yet different situation. I am working with hege funds, doing ops back office and this restricts my ability to trade- completely. What I have done in the last 4 years since graduating college (and working for this large bank) is manage a virtual fund that has generated annualized returns of 20% (Apha is good as well). I live and breathe the markets, however, my time is limited as a result of work. After work my time during the week heavily consists on research, this is my passion. I have considered going into trading as well, for many of the similar reasons to the first post. I am an extremely competitive person (state champion level soccer) and know that with enough time I will do well in almost anything, given the desire and proper guidance. I do have enough money to live off of for a while and have access to a firm providing trading capital, limited at first but with time will offer 1k share lots. The more recent recruits have done well, from what I have been told and I would assume, based upon my education (irrelevant?) and market acumen that I would do at least as well. My fear, however, is the unknown (and all my bills!). Would love some advice as well. NYCDT
you can daytrade futures with any amount of capital, no 25k minimum. the leverage in futures lets you possibly make more money with less. but you can also lose much more with less capital. you should practice first with futures as many beginners in futures leverage up too much and blow up. you can blow up with one trade if you wanted to.
I ma sure there are other people like us. But they are right in terms that it is all diff ballgame when full-time. I have been reading some nice books and they are all in the same tone as the advice form the other postings. After nine months I think I am getting the market moods and I have been successfully pciking the right market moves ... Once I am doing this fulltime, I will stick with SPY, QQQQ and IWM etfs.. very liquid. on paper I have been very successfull. The key is to find a day trading firm with $0.005 per share comission.