You dolt. Do you think I would go through all of this crap in public if I wasn't positive that Advantage Futures would vindicate me either under subpoena or regulatory scrutiny ? I would have wilted and faded away if I wasn't positive that I could produce trading statements and tax returns dating all the way back to the mid-1990's under subpoena. Do I or should I post that stuff publicly ? Hell no.
This is certifiable. How can you have been in this business for this length of time and ask some so abjectly ridiculous? There is nothing to prove; other than the number by itself only proves that there was $486K in the account. It's a debit, dude. "DR" means debit. I'll walk you through it like I'd explain it to my 10yo. The $486K was transferred, yes. Whether that $486K resulted from a $50K, $500K, or $5,000K balance at inception (or any point in time in 2006) is unknown. Whoever was custodian of the prop-account cleared it out and bone continued to carry some positions in the account with the few grand remaining. Friggin 2 lots. You keep cash on-hand to meet initial and maint. Or some T-bills. Or a combination thereof. So the $488K not only reflected the net-liq but also his gains to-date? BULLSHIT. I've been in this business for over 20y and have traded for four funds with AUM exceeding $1B per. IOW, legit HFs. If anyone here wants to vet that then I will be happy to do so when bone produces something other than a meaningless DR figure on a run. I could be a rank f*cking noob and know a debit entry on a run means that money went bye-bye. With no supporting info it's a joke. Agate doesn't have shit for info and is simply reaching, unless bone showed him the monthly runs. REGARDLESS, nothing is to be gleaned from the debit. This "largest futures prop firm" earned $150K on $4MM in partner-equity in 2011. The run isn't "screwed up" but it's not indicative of any PNL. Period. I am a very literal-type. I have stated ad nauseam that it's not my business nor do I care if the entirety of ET becomes a client. I am stating, w/o equivocation, that the number is NOT PROOF OF PNL.
There were a couple posts earlier by two different members that refuted the general notion that spreads are smoother than flat price. This is conditionally true, but to a limited extent and to a restricted scope of particular intramarket spread combinations - which my clients know well. There are thousands of exceptions to this over-reaching statement, especially when you are referring to butterflies, double butterflies, and condors in terms of intermarket spreads that are away from the prompt months and further down the curve. The energy distillate crack spreads and the precious metals spreads can have historical vols ranging from 30 - 70 % the past few years. Also, the prompt to second month and the second to third month simple calendar spread pairs, especially in energy, can have trading ranges that approach or even exceed the front month during rollover. So those circumstances can indeed make that point. The problem is, those spread trades account for about 5-10% of the combinations we build and model. For example, Build a Heating Oil Butterfly in the mid to late 2015 part of the curve, like HO N5 - 2* HOQ5 + HO U5 and compare it to HOV4or even HO V4:HOX4. We spend a lot of time engineering delta directionality and volatility OUT of spread trade combinations. We prefer to lever smooth, modest moving spreads.
I suppose if a firm pays out it's traders quarterly on a 45 - 75 % basis, pays it's employees normal salaries and benefits, subsidizes trader family benefits, pays for prime office space, pays over $100K per month for ECN costs, pays the City of Chicago their head count tax, pays utilities and all the other incidental overheads, pays the active and passive partners their cuts, pays for all the risk and back office software and hardware costs not passed on to the traders, pays for an employee Christmas party and rents out several skyboxes over the course of the year for sporting events, then yeah - earning $150K in a partnership LLC configuration after distributions and expenses is probably not that unusual. The firm's accountant's are doing their jobs because the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois are not, shall we say, tax-friendly. All I know is that firm has quite a few traders making markets in options on futures and they are either on the floor or on the screen. Sometimes both and working headsets. I doubt those earnings are not unusual at all for a rather large Partnership LLC. Everybody gets paid on a K-1 distributions because being taxed post-distribution as a corporation is just a waste. Your K-1 recipients are the ones that are going to pay the bulk of the taxes.
Are you f*cking serious? On $465K in gross (not including comms/exch fees, NFA. etc.). Biggest? This has gone surreal. You are truly out of your mofo mind. ALL of what you mention would appear on the balance sheet. My wife earned more in 2011 working for the Feds. And this is "one of the largest futs prop firms"?
Anyone looking to trade options on futures can expect firms like Ronin, DRW, Timber Hill, Prime International, and some other notables to be taking the other side in terms of market making. All are considered to be top tier US proprietary trading groups.
5 to 10%? I thought entire 2006 profit came from your crackspread per your website. Regarding any spreads, one should have fundamental knowledge of that product they trade. If they are purely technical trader trading spreads then they are setting up for failure, since they can loose on all legs of the trade with lot more commissions and bid-ask spread differentials. They are also trading bigger size to achieve the same dollar profits, it will be huge hit. They are better off trading underlying with their technical trading skills.
how long before someone has to eat the peanuts out of someone else's s***. that post got me lol. seriously calm down people, none of this this really matters. The only thing that matter is your PnL when the market closes. get over it and move along. If you are going to spend money on something just do your due diligence.
Well, calmer heads see all of this for what it really is. It's just that the compulsion to be a keyboard narcissist apparently overwhelms.