I trade a lot of stocks that do less than 500,000 shares per day, and I don't want to attract attention to the ones that are currently working for me. Market is competitive enough without giving someone else a free ride.
I was going to ask NYSEKILLER the same thing. I spent all night last night going through his posts and watching how his P&L and buying power grew. On top of that his consistency also is impeccable now. Quite honestly, the P&L 2006 thread really help me gauge where I'm at and how far I still have to go to achieve such consistency from these guys (presuming it's all legit).
It's extremely hard to believe all the blotters. Every day 95% of the blotters are positive and many are 1-5k every single day. For that many traders to be that consistent is just not believable. Outside red ink who show's the occasional down 3-5k none of the blotters are ever down over $200 yet they're taking huge risk and size to make 5k So it makes no sense not to have an occasional screwup and lose 1-2k.Like today 1 guy starts off saying it's a tough day and all the blotters come in line as a tough day. It's hilarious
I know a few people who mysteriously only seem to pop in when they have positive days. I'm sure they just "forget" the other days
I get a lot of leverage trading prop. Not sure how much leverage futures guys use because I have only been a prop equity trader. At the first firm I worked for, I was given position and share limits. I have no idea how much money i was using at one time during that period. Now I have $1 million in buying power, which I don't come close to using most of the time. If a situation arose where I needed more buying power, I could get it by making a phone call (as long as I wasn't having my head handed to me in the process). I chose the equities route because I saw an ad for prop traders on Monster.com in the year 2000. I didn't start trading until December of 2000. The firm hired me and let me start trading for only $100.
With about $30k, you can control about $1.2 million worth of Russell 2000 contract assuming IB's intraday margin requirements (off the top of my head calculatoin). I heard companies like Velocity futures requires only 1/3 of of IB's requirement which means even larger buying power (about 3x?) Same thing for YM (equivalent of DIA), you can probably control up to $900k through IB intraday and about 3x through Velocity or some other futures shop that requires less intraday.
Why very few futures traders posting, and why almost NO Forex traders posting? I know there are profitable futures & forex traders out there as well, why not post?
I trade several stocks everday. If I traded different ones everyday I wouldnt mind showing them but since I make my livelihood off of several stocks, I'd rather keept them to myself.
I used insurance money as my risk deposit, thats how I have a lot of buying power, and really its not that much. As for being able to put up the numbers I have, its not impossible, some people don't believe that 20k a day is possible but think of it this way, in any given day billions of dollars in traded in the north american markets and so all I have been able to do is pick up a few crumbs that the big guys drop and won't miss when they take their part of the pie. If you traded with a guy who put up numbers like RM everyday and was willing to show you how they did it, how could you not make money?
My software is 'Laser' it's from Genesis Securities. If you want some specific information feel free to pm me. As far as showing what stocks you trade. I feel no need to be secretive. I trade stuff thats in the news and trade different stuff everyday. I have no idea what I will trade tomorrow, I'll figure it out in pre-market. Though NVDA is looking like a good candidate. I totally understand if someone is trading something a bit on the thin side and doesn't want to attract 30 odd lotters into their action. However, if you're simply flipping 2000 shares of PFE or INTC what's the big secret? Cheers, Red