ive been reading alot about them just wondering if anyone could offer me any unbiased information or if anyone is working their terminals right now if they would tell me a little about the process and what an average trader there can expect to make thx for the help
How can you expect any unbiased opinion? - Those who have worked there, or who are currently working there, either think the outift is a joke or are satisfied. Plenty of opinions have been posted here on Elite. Just do a thorough search and you will get all kinds of information, from quick one-liners to thorough treatises and full-blown essays. Since most of the opinions are largely negative, I would assume you may have already done a search and are now probably looking for information to support your desire/decision to go and trade there. Anyway,... good luck!
I am an ex-swiftie who is now trading my own money without the benefits/downsides of a prop firm. My experience there was good overall. I always laugh when I read all the negative postings because I suspect that most of them are posted by Swift's competition. One in particular who used to be part of the organization until he was caught stealing and was kicked out. I heard that he started up his own prop firm and has a vendetta. I notice that most of the really negative posts have the same written style and only posts things up about swift and not anything else. Don't let all these posts sway you. Go visit them (or any other prop firms in your area) and give it a shot. Other than time, what do you have to lose? You can always leave. What I don't understand is why the complainers who are still trading at swift or any other prop firm stick around when they can just walk out the door? Just my 2cents worth. Good luck!
Swifttrade is a good place to get your feet wet about day trading. It's all up to you if you'll learn to trade and go on to become a successful trader. I don't agree with some of their trading tactics but they don't force you to do anything you don't want to, could be a good thing. But remember it's all about making money. That's it! Why does it seem like there's a f*cking echo in here?
Any ex-swifttrader can comment on how hard for the new trainee to graduate? do they give you somethign for you to work with at start then you can start making some bucks? and if not, how do you manage to past that stage for the new people who only have basic knowledge on the market and daytrading. And I heard they may assign you to different type of trading(rebate, equity...) how does that affects you? I mean we all know the pro/con of swiftrade now probably with so many topic talk about those, but alittle hard to find some people who can give out little advice on how you past thru the probation stage. but many people do stats out the 10% past rate , that's abit scary.
How to pass through the probation stage? Easy. Be patient. You gotta realize you wont be seeing any money for at least six months, and cover your expenses before hand. Baby steps. Once you figure that out, don't worry about making money, just learn to enjoy trading and try to go up steps in their traidng program. You wouldn't believe how many people leave after they get frustrated because they cant make any money with 300 shares! Just learn to enjoy trading and fullfill the goals. Once you have 3000-5000 shares, you'll probably be near the $2000 a month anyway! Be calm. Think of losses as operational costs. Dont get upset, or feel like you screwed up everytime you loss. Just think about it as the cost of doing bussiness, and try to reduce costs. Have fun. If you have fun while trading, you'll increase your odds exponentially. Simply because you enjoy what you're doing; any money you get it's just an extra!
That was a nice reply post, thanks. good suggestion on the emotional part. But you have any suggestion on the technical part on the trading? and another question I have is the managers keep mention on avg , traders do about 200+ trades / days, how about for the begininer? and how much(cents per trades) does most traders(beginers and pros, both stats if possible) take in swiftrade? just wanna get a gerneral picture on how long each trade last, and what most traders usually take out from each trades. I knwo evyerone is unique , just hope to knwo what avg is like, and what should i expect int he begining. Thanks if any ex-swifttrader could help me
and right, I understand in the begining , you should expect no money. But what usually makes them fire you. i mean let's said if you didnt' make any money (losing) for the first 3-6 month, you still want to continuing donig it, you did show improvement, but just that you still in negative terriroty....will they force you to go , or they give you more time to tried?
Ok, on the technical part. I do most of my trading looking for rebates, not actual points, so my average points per trade is usually 0, 1 at the most. I go into stocks that dont allow for much more than that, they move no more than 10 cents on an average day, but those are also stocks where you can go in with larger blcks without increasing your risk substanciously. However I do occasionally use a faster moving stocks, the kind that move 1 or 2 dollars per day, when I do so I do it with a reduced the size of my share blocks to 100-300, and I look for 10-20 points per move; [but note that I also risk losing 5-10 points per move, you cant do that as a begginer as it would mean close orders right away. For beginners. you should be looking at 50 trades per day as you start your training and then increase it towards the 200 mark, I usually perform above 200 trades per day, with so many trades I get to produce enough rebates to allow myself losing up to 15 gross points with a 0 on my net balance, in a good day I would lose about 5 points gross and get a net profit of +10points. I like using rebates as it's easier to get more stable profits. Is not as volatile as momentum, the secret is being in and out as fast as possible, so whenever you're inside you look for the fastest way out [without removing liquidity- I only remove liquidity in emergencies], just to get back in line to look for the fastest way in, and so on. And I dont allow myself to losse more than 1 point, if I see my self on -2 points I use attain to get out right away. You shouldn't worry about profits untill you have over 1000 shares per block, you should worry about getting to 1000 share blocks. At first it helps to go into medium-fast moving stocks, as they provide with more entry exit oportunities, then as you bcome more able to read those and start fulfilling the targets to get larger blocks thats the way they look at my branch, you start on 100 share blocks, 1 stock. get 0 or better gross 3 days, with 50+trades, you get 200 shares. get $10 gross or better 3 days in a row, with 50+trades, and move to 300 shares get $30 net or better 3 days in a row to move to 500 shares. [this usually takes about two months, by then you'll be looking at 4-5 stocks and you can go fully into rebate trading] with 500 shares we require students to trade at least 6 different securities per day, they can trade in more securities or trade mostly on one of them. As they wish. They're encourage, though not required anymore to do at least 50 trades. Once they get $50 net 3 days in a row, they get 700shares. From then on the number on shares is given by the mpp, you simply measure your maximun points lose so that you can lose 10 points net. For instance with a maximun lost of $100 you should use 1000 share blocks. Once you've got 1000 shares, you should be seeing profits between 75-150 $ per day, that should take you out of the overall red numbers very quickly. And simultaneously it will push you further up the ladder to about 5000 shares, once in that range you should expect daily profits of up to 500$, with such a number of shares you could be able to graduate very quickly. Once you've got that amount of shares you can easily try to play momentum stocks at 100 share blocks without your emotions getting involved, as you'll see a daily loss of $30 as nothing. Making it a lot easier for you to scalp 10-20 point moves. [It wont produce you any profit either, but it will let you study such stocks from an objective point of view].