awww, look who's back. it's clubberlang and his bodyguard, george foreman. did you guys miss me? i'm so flattered to be on your ignore list. yet you still read my posts, and ever took the time to post a screen capture of you blocking me. that's so sweeeet. rope a dope, rope, rope, a dope. you guys got comfy chairs? you need anything to drink? can we order you some milk and cookies? a massage before the closing run? how about a nice tall glass of gofuckyourself? with a cherry on top. now go make some money, little boys, before mommy finds out you've skipped school to go the casino.
I run a branch of of a prop firm and have my licenses with them as well. I risk manage about 25 guys and most of them do quite well and have been in the business a long time so I can definitely say first hand there are successful people out there. The firm I am with has its dilemmas and I get frustrated at all the paperwork but they work very hard to maintain high levels of compliance so all and all I feel they are a very legit firm. I have been lucky in that when I was new to the business I worked with ethical people who I feel did a great job balancing profit with the desire to see people be successful. Their philosophy was not to bring in as many people as the could, wipe them out and then bring in more. Rather they realized the key to their own profits was to be realistic with people about what to expect and then put them in a situation where they could be successful if they where willing to put in the time and effort. The real profit comes with helping make guys successful and happy so they stay with you. Of course not everyone is cut out to do this kind of work and from time to time we have to close people down before they really hurt themselves. I think some of the biggest mistakes people (including myself) make when they consider this type of career is the actual committment it really takes to make it. I spent about three years trading in the morning and then working a regular job in the afternoons and evenings to pay the bills. Most of that time I was paper trading and trading small time (and losing but not so much that it wiped me out) trying different methods to find one that worked for me and suited my personality. I also spent all the free time I could talking with whoever I could and just watching the trade screens. Eventually I made some friends that were successful and allowed me to join their group. Also when other people in the business knew I was serious and was going to stick around, I got an opportunity to run a branch which provides another source of income and allows be to leave my trading profits alone so I can have more buying power. Whats really the hardest thing to do in my opinion is get in with the right people to learn the business. In order to be successful you need to learn how to trade rather than just have someone tell you what to trade. (That doesnt work for a lot of reasons) Basically if a trader is successful, most times they really don't want to share their secrets ( I don't blame them) and there is usually not enough you can pay them to make it worth their while to teach you. If they are making 100K a month on average, even if you split your profits 50/50 you still really dont make enough in the first year for the amount of time they have to spend with you. And keep in mind they have no guarantee that after you learn from them, you wont quit and go somewhere else to avoid having to pay the split. So for alot of the very successful guys its not worth it to take on trainees. Im not sure how helpful this was or not but there was some good advice. I realize not everyone's situation was the same as mine but all the successful guys have there own story of how they made it. Just look for the common themes and be prepared to live, eat sleep and breathe the business if you want to make it. Just like in anything else in life, if you really have a passion for it, you'll find a way to make it work.
finally, another intelligent response rises above the slurm with an intelligent opinion. a basic law of economics: opportunity cost. the cost of doing something else must outweigh the current venture. that only 25 guys in an office, with 3+ years of training to get to the position you are, the stress and difficulty, the blowouts, and the likely hundreds, if not thousands of recruits simply tossed aside, not knowing their aptitude levels relative to the "job" because existing traders didn't have time to "train" them, learning new systems, copying others', the initiation ritual, buried beneath a pile of paperwork to cover the broker's backside (not yours)... seems like a great business model. compliance is one thing. futility is another. first of all: 1. you don't assign profitable traders to teach neos. you leave them alone to make money. 2. you incentivize (sic) the trader to mentor off hours, and on downtimes, like lunch, to teach a class, and only assign a neo to a trader after they've completed the basics, have traded play money on their own for a while to learn basic lessons. real money thrown in to condition to fear. and assigning lots and lots and lots of analysis homework so they learn to live and breathe trading as a lifestyle, it is not a job. it wouldn't be unreasonable to live together, in groups of four, in larger places, than isolated in dumps in the bronx, when they could pay as much in rent sharing a bigger place in brooklyn. sports teams match rookies to veterans, live in their homes, go out on the town in groups. why not in trading? makes sense to me. 3. a trader will absolutely set aside time if the incentive is there. and in the scenario i speak of, the incentive is pooled capital, greater returns, where his own trading becomes his opportunity cost of not contributing to something bigger, longer term, with greater security, so he (or she) doesn't have to work so damn hard to stay in the game. 4. you create groups. tight, organised, focused trading cells that just trade xyz stocks, and nothing else. led by an expert, assigned capital is tiered according by experience and results. just like a wolf pack. it's so similar to the way the wall street firms teach brokers. it's a no brainer combining the two armies. and what an army it would be if it worked... problem is, too many generals, too many soldiers, too much money chasing too few brains, with no organisation and weak leadership, working within a top-up business model where the house always wins, the player is set up to lose. i'm talking about building a company, an organisation, not running franchises out of rotating shoeboxes, pitching dogshit training programs (i.e. smb capital) where maybe 1% of the kids coming in the door with mbas from tier 2 schools who can calculate pi to the 128th decimal point in their heads but couldn't afford to go to harvard, hungry, greedy, intelligent college kids with jack shit for job prospects, no reasonable expectation for retirement within 60+ years, in an economy where they are working to support a social security system they will never draw from, can make a decent living trading. maybe even get (dare i say it) out of debt before they're 90. but what the hell do i know, i lost 82K today long FSLR thinking it was going up on all this obamanomics bullshit, and because it's forming a long term bottom waiting to gap up above its all time high of 205.43 once these green energy bills pass. great post.
Absolutely. You have to be a complete idiot to risk everything on one trade. Being that I trade 20+ stocks each and everyday, I have no reason to risk it all on one trade because I know there's always another trade. Even on the few setups that I can think of (maybe about 7 or 8) over the past 2 1/2 years that I've seen that were no-brainer, load the boat trades, where I took b/w 30,000 - 65,000 shares in a position, I still had plenty of buying power left and I knew my risk before I jumped in. Each of them were big winners except for one. Because you can't trust yourself to adhere to risk management principles, don't be so naive to believe that others are as incapable as you are. BUT---on the other hand, ignorant thoughts like this probably comfort you in your ineptitude.
that was exactly what I was thinking myself, but because I was busy watching the markets and catching up on my politics and on the phone talking about TRYK, I just didn't have the time to write it out. plus, it's game 3... good job. A-. I'd offer you a position in my group but you insulted me first. best of luck. cheers. rb.
I will. I guess with some people there's no reasoning. This guy reminds me of the other guy Port1385 (or whatever his name his). Both useless. TRYKpiker, we're awake living your dreams as traders. Wake Up! BTW I can't see your comments because you're on ignore.
youll be back because if ypu both had me on ignore you wouldn't have replied. but nice try. when you wish upon a star... makes no difference who you are. buy DIS. morons. rb.
I have to agree to TRYK regarding how the business structures are set for broker-driven prop firms. Though, prop. firms that are profit driven do exist: Options Market Making. (Optiver, CTC) Private Trading Firms. (RenTech, Jane Street) Institutional Prop. (GS, MS, BRK) The whole issue is that the prop. industry has gone through 5-6 turns since the days of Worldco and Schonfeld ruling the industry. True props continues to become more and more quantitative and IT heavy. They use the resources to expose timely edges and provide them to the traders. There's equal amount of money to be made by fully automated strategies and strategies that require delegated input from traders following the market. In return, they pay the traders a healthy draw and comp.. They don't need to ask the traders for capital and they don't have to worry about teaching and training the new traders. The firm has a clear cut edge which allows the newbies to fall back on even if they don't perform well psychologically. So what's left is the old school firms with no edge and traders who couldn't make the cut. It's quite understandable why "regular props" attract losers. They couldn't / can't adjust to the changing markets. There's alot of room for subjective analysis of the markets making the person's perception (which the 5% of population has) the key to success. The markets will continue to change and that 5% is still vulnerable to losing their "edge". Anyways... It's no business for light-weights.