mktmkr, Welcome to ET. Glad you found the site. Overall it's a pretty good one with lots of young, new traders. If you give it some time and have some patience you'll quickly learn which forums are worth your time and who is for real and not. This site helps prove that there is still plenty of money to be had in the markets! Looks like the live trading floor is slowly becoming a relic. Trading pits overall will go the way of the dinosaur sooner or later as well. It's up to the individual exchanges to keep developing new products and making new markets if they want to stay alive. It's a brave new world of consolidation and exchanges are feeling the heat. No worries, the corporate world has been consolidating and creating new businesses throughout history. Just now the "Good Ole Boy" system is under siege. No longer is there really a significant "inside" to be a part of. Hedge funds and private equity are also pushing things along. Personally, I'm a corporate refuge and will never return to that life again. I've been in cubicle land and outside sales in the pharamceutical industry, and if I ever have to answer to another middle manager again in my life, well, I'll probably kill myself. One thing my sales career did alow me was a chance to learn trading semi-professionally while I could get a nice account amassed. Been trading/investing for years, well before the crash and ever since. I'm mid 30's now and trading full time professionally from the comforts of home for the past 3 years. Haven't looked back once! Change is good. Welcome to the brave new digital world. Many of the principles are the same; only the strong survive, those that take risks will be well rewarded, and Darwin's Evolution Theories are being tested and proven correct every day. The revolution is over, hope you can adapt now to the latest stage of evolution. Welcome aboard.
Of course my brother and I spent years on the various options and futures floors, but we went "upstairs" early on as well. This provided us with a pretty good perspective about eTrading. It is hardto transition, and we have many ex floor traders, smart guys, who for whatever reason (usually ego, I hate to say) don't want to learn the new "stuff" or adapt...but, those who have parked their egos at the door, are doing pretty well. Pretty much the same experience as we have seen on the exchange floors over the years. Don
I agree with your comment about ego, Don. I'm very humble - I KNOW I don't know anything about equities from the screen. But, each day in front of the screeen, watching prices, bids and offers, and prints, I learn a little something new. My hope, though this has not been shown yet to be the case, is that perhaps (just perhaps) my prior experience will shorten the learning curve a bit, and/or make it a bit less steep. If not, then I'll learn like everyone else - from the beginning. I'm very fortunate to have two experienced, successful equities traders as mentors!
My take is that you will have "positive gammas' with the learning curve, simply meaning that as you start getting up to speed, things will progress very quickly...I've seen that many times in the past. Don
Yes, alot of people are being fired or going out of business based on the old way (specialist systerm) going more electronic. Where wil these people go ? Do you know of any that have had smooth transitions from floor trading to some new style? Or which firms might be hiring for ex: ex-NYSE employees?
Mkt Mkr- A few questions about the options biz if you don't mind: 1. Are there any independent mkt mkrs left or is the biz dominated by the large trading firms like Susquehana and Timber Hill? 2. How much cash do you have to put up and how much experience is necessary for a JBO deal? 3. What is the best software package for streaming quotes and executing orders in an electronic trading environment, and what does it cost? The reason I'm asking is that I have been scalping stocks for the last 8 yrs, and I'm tired of watching my edge diminish. I spent all of my summers during high school and college on the CBOE floor, and am thinking about moving over to the options market. I've been following your thread on the options forum, and it's good to see some expertise there. Thanks for your insight.
i'll go in order 1 almost none...mostly larger locals with good capital and for the most part, SIG, Timber, Knight(or whoever they are now)city i think, citadel and so on 2 dont know now, used to be 1 mil or about 3 most clearing houses and brokers have some version and the exchanges have their's, usually a monthly fee for the software plus conectivity, for a sole prop, figure a bout a grand a month per guy the bigest problem...no edge, really no edge...if you want to position trade...the jbo will give you the leverage...but for scalping...which is what mm do(by the way, i dont see that as a bad thing, they were getting paid to provide liquidity whene no one else would)...thereis just not enough in the option to make money the old way (short term hedge with stock...in and out...flat going home)
It's two different animals. The biggest advantages on the floor were a.) virtually no commissions and b.) no FIFO. Let's face it no FIFO IS the edge! The democracy of the screen is great but as Putin will tell you there's still guy's who long for the privileges of power.......