why wouldn't you trade for a futures firm all you are going to do trading for an equities firm is make them a lot of $ in commissions with little return. (starting trading small share bundles) There is a lot more bang for your buck in futures...I have talked to guys in those type of firms (Equity) and they think 500-1000 a day is a good day, there are guys in my group making 20K+ a day trading futures. On good days some guys make over 100K. A 2 handle (point) winner in the SPU on a ten lot is +1000. Which I have made in as little as 5 seconds! The SPU future has an intra day range sometimes of 40 handles but it has been around 20-30 handles recently!
I never said it was easy a lot of people come in and blow out but it can be done with the right teaching and discipline. Move to Chicago someone might give you a shot!
There are two types of situations on this site 1) Fantasy 2) Reality I am part of number 2, I trade real money for a major futures player and am on this site trying to answer people's questions and help them into the business and be successful in this business. Your sarcasm is not appreciated if you do not have anything to help the OP don't say it. The comment I made is true about equity and option prop shops. So why don't you worry about that awesome separatist movement (Front de libération du Québec) or hang out with your idol Jacques Parizeau.
Curve, Do not bang your head against the wall with these equity pikers and their issues with futures or options trades. Let the be in this small pool to fight for a 500 share fill on GOOG or GS and try to hang on for a point. I have been here for years telling them to drop equity and get into something that can scale up but they do not seem to get it and live by this "I must grind out this living" HEY EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE HAPPY WHAT THEY ARE DOING BUT I DO MY JOB 20 TIME BIGGER AS A FUTURES TRADE AND WITH 10 TIMES LESS FRUSTRATION. The worse thisg about this entire thing is I ran and owned a stock and option shop for years and it was hard to convert those guys to futures when the equities dried up in 2002. Some just want to fight the tide.... Think about it.....not that fucking hard to realize the commish and fees are 20% of the equity world.
"A 2 handle (point) winner in the SPU on a ten lot is +1000. Which I have made in as little as 5 seconds! The SPU future has an intra day range sometimes of 40 handles but it has been around 20-30 handles recently!" You are the next George Soros obviously. If you are a realy good trader get off the S+P train and come trade natural gas swaps with the big boys. The waters warm and the sharks are waiting.
Artis- since I am not a trader for an energy company I am staying away from energy whenever I try to trade it I get run over there are so many factors which affect that market, I see many random sweeps of the market. I will stick to my bread and butter which is yield curve and spu, which in itself is tough enough these days. (I trade yield curve cash which is the Big Boys in another market!) The ten and five year cash is so thin compared to the last couple of years! I look at too many markets now as it is! thanks
I guess I thought with a firm with the cash backing it was fairly easy to simulate the leverage of the futures markets in equities. If you go the prop route and demonstrate you can trade you can access more capital.