How was it? What are your comments from the show? How were the crowds?, presentations?, overall impressions?
Well....I, too, would be interested in the opinion of attendees. As an exhibitor and speaker, I must admit that I was a bit (pleasantly) surprised at the turnout of experienced traders (I can usually tell by the types of questions asked). Fewer vendors (by far), most trading firms were either non existent or minimal in their displays this year. A few new people, as we see every year....that is always nice. The "paid" workshops were considerably smaller than last year (I chose to give free workshops this year, and invite traders to our Open House today (March 3) in NYC (120 Broadway, 30th floor 6PM...come on by), and to our Long Island office (Hauppague) tomorrow, March 4th at 7PM. If any of you New Yorkers want to come by, feel free. NYC: 212.433.4500 Long Island: 631.231.3558. Don
I thought that the amount of vendors definitely was smaller. Some of these people are there for what? brand recognition? Come on, we need to see new products!! new improvements! Like Neovest giving me a demo of their IOG, trade station trying to show off their 7 version, a BD called Emperian Global Markets trying to have a all in one system for filtering and order execution and i believe the first to use IOG just to name a few. A lot of other booths were primarily focusing on retail trading, and again, they went way too far with their booths. Real Tick basically owned the middle of a trading floor, with market wise and another trading firm as part of the family. I wonder how much that costed them!!! but you know what, its the investors money that they are spending. I wonder how long it would take them to say recoup an investment of say $25-40,000? and this isnt prob including all their set up and take down costs, shipping, etc.... The real question is what happens next year? Do they cancel the online trading expo? Its the heart of the trading captial of the world, and why are they even trying to have it at other locations? Best bet is to stream line and have it in one place, and have it filled up. This year the expo had two floors, If I am correct, there was three last year?
Met a rep from Real Tick, after they closed up their booth, and whilest he was leaving the show floor, and he basically said that he'd register his comments of complaint on the turn out. Seems that they were enticed to spend for thier location in anticipation of the roaring, robust times of long ago. I wondered too, why the firms didn't factor in the sheer market collapse upon the "attitude" of the retial public towards not wanting to invest any further than they already have. How many access programs and brokerage accounts are there out there that are not already spoken for, and how many would you expect to get from these shows, are questions that I'm glad I didn't have to factor in. Other comments ranged from Saturday being the heavily attended day, to the other days being paultry. Next year's show will probably reflect current market conditions. One thing is certain is that there's a lot of good done by the show originators. Many of the paid presentations were well worth their prices. Of course there are the over priced CPA services, which one needs to be leary of, and the reasonably priced CPA services that were there also. There were the terciary trading services that have grown in their expensiveness also. Sometimes I wonder why these services continue to think that in the hardest trading times, their expected clientele are still able to afford them at their inflated prices?
e*trade had free massage girls and shoeshine dudes at their booth last year. they also hosted an awesome after party at the e*trade center on madison. i should have guessed that this was indicitive of a "top" in the public's interest in the stock market. best, surfer
Now THATS the proper use of investors' capital, no more CEO art works or executive crystal. Massage girls! I'm there dude!
Maybe thats what some firms should have done this year!! Seriously, i have never seen so many exhibitors that bored, they were actually walking around and hanging out at other booths!!
Weather didn't make it any feasible for many traders, like me, who had planned to come into town from another state.