Actually he needs to register as a CTA with the NFA since he is giving futures trading recommendations. This falls under the the supervision of the NFA and the CFTC.
If they are trading futures then yes a series 3 is in order. I don't track what puretick trades just that are paying to anyone who took all of the recommendations. Regardless they should have done their homework first. Bsulli
They need to registered as a CTA, its like a $1500 a year fee to the NFA. There are also complience rules that they must follow once they are registered.
Hi Bsulli.. I see what your saying... Here's our logic: Have you read Mark Douglas, Trading in the Zone? Most users can not stick to a new setup for even 5 trades in a row before trying something else. The sad fact is that out of 100 users we have at PureTick only 3 sent in enteries for the contest. That tells us most of them were too ashamed of their trading discipline to even enter. Our users tend to suffer from over trading, revenge trading, and a variety of other problems im sure your familiar with. It was our hope that a little competition would help them stick to their plan and not just impulse trade their accounts a way. We'd prefer to focus on keeping our current clients and making them happy. I don't think any new clients signed up with the sole intent of winning any cash money. We'll keep doing whatever we can to help new traders evolve. Our next contest may even be only a week or a few days. That way people on trial could take advantage if they wished. CajunSniper / Puretick.com Administrator-Trader
And what is needed in order to become a CTA? A Series 3. Therefore, as I said, a Series 3 is in fact needed when looking at it in context outside the grey area.
Interesting info Caj, but you failed to comment on why PT is not registered with the NFA as a CTA. I think that's where bsulli was going with this, I don't think he cared about how many entries your contest generated. The whole trading room thing is currently a grey area, that is for sure. I would think that to be safe however, the vendor would want to be cautious (and complete the very simple CTA papers).
Alex has a series 3. When trading rooms are required to register of course we will. Right now we are not auto trading or managing any of our room members accounts. We're just providing education.
If you are soley providing "educational" material you don't need to register. But when you are making calls and advising people to take those calls you must register. By encouraging people to take yours calls. i.e. giving $1000 to the person who takes the most calls, you are now holding yourself out to be an advisor as a result of your incetive to have people follow your advise. If you just have a trading room saying what you are doing and explaining how you trade and have disclaimers up all over saying this room is soley for educational purposes ,you are not required to register as a CTA. This may seem like it is petty but this is the way it works. Anyway, thats the info. do what you will with it.
Yes we have disclaimers up the wazoo due to the fact were dealing directly with some brokers now. I don't think we'll be having any more contests for awhile. No one was really comfortable with sending in their statements. Caj