San Diego trader here too. Our firm usually goes out for drinks once a month down In Pacific Beach. I'd be down for meeting up some time with other traders.
I received several emails asking about iTrading so here's what I know... They are at 4380 La Jolla Village Dr., #120 , in the BofA building. I believe they were only trading futures at first and using Trading Technologies software. They start by taking 50% of your earnings and that drops to 25% after a certain limit. They also charge a hefty desk fee of $2k per month, but they do claim that a trader never owes them money, which implies that the desk fee is not paid unless your making money. I believe there was also a small commision. It didn't interest me because I'm already making money on my own acct. I really sacrificed to become profitable as a trader and it felt kinda cheap to share my knowledge with a prop shop.
I still have some cisco routers and hubs left over from when I owned an office in La Jolla. At one point one of my routers was worth 10 grand. I am not sure if it would be useful now. I will be happy to let your office use it the equipment if you need it to get started. I currently live in florida - but I think I (and family) will be moving back to San Diego. We spoke yesterday of putting our house on the market.
That's what I meant by small commish. Good firms usually will make nothing or next to nothing on the commish.
I do know the guys well at iTrading and there is no commish mark up with their deal. There are exchange fees and a commish to the FCM but that is standard and desk fees goes to cover their lines and cost. Why trade with them if you have your own consistant system? Simply because the environments change and you best be looking at the next thing to gain an edge. This is what a good office will offer, access to whatever is making the best consistant edge.
Im glad to see there are other traders here in SD. A meet-up might be a good idea. Part time in currencies some commodities over the passed 3-4yrs. just personal cash. Im looking for a place to start up an office and get more serious. Been thinking about going remote with a prop or something. I have a few questions about the seed funding that some of these companies promise, how does the arrangement work and is it really worth it? It seems that I never have enough assets to really do what I wanna do. From a macro standpoint there are more markets that I want to get involved in but don't have the assets to make a move.
San Diego here also. I'd be interested in meeting up with some people out here that trade the indexes. It is hard to stay focused trading every day sitting at home. PM me if anyone wants to meet up. Jonathan
I think they offer both now, but you'll have a hard time getting into the prop group unless you have a track record.