Years ago equity trading firm Shoenfeld trained their traders on simulators and the backed them with cash. Some traders were eventually handed many millions to trade with. However, potential traders were screened (most not taken) and then trained on-site by big winning traders. No one paid to be there. Why? Because this is a real trading firm. Sadly, Shoenfeld let hundreds of manual traders go years ago when trading became much tougher. The firm is still around, moving billions around, but mostly this is through Quant trading. They still have one older Russian who manually moves around large numbers. And now they do things with traders who put up their own cash
I said that about TST in an earlier post-how they're making money of 1000 traders paying $125 to $400 each month.Every one of us is in trading to make money,TST isn't different .If some traders attending combine manage to pass the combine,TST is getting about 0.75-1% monthly or 8-12% yearly return on their invested money for funding an average performing trader-which isn't that bad of ROI ,it's a win-win situation for TST in both direction. But I think they're doing a clear business.I haven't tried their education yet-so can't really tell anything about it.But regarding their main funding activities,I've heard relatively fewer complaints about them-they do fund those pass combine & impose no hidden criteria upon passing that isn't previously stated in their website .They provided a statistics that they fund on average a trader each day for 365 days a year.As a trader trying to pass TST combine-I think that's all I need to know. Concisely put,eligible ones pass the combine & others don't.So rather than focusing my efforts to find out how many doesn't & what amount of money is being made from those poor fellows,I choose to focus my efforts on being one of the few eligible ones.A man can have a thousand reasons to choose the common route of others ,but he needs only one reason to choose trying something differently & escape from the maze that's holding others. IMO,TST is doing more good than harm for the trading community.Sure,I'll love it if they're still continuing their 2010 business model of no amount of fee from combine attendees & only source of revenue from the ROI they're getting from their funded account.But number of traders looking for funding & calling free shots may have risen each year,then someone in there probably figured looking at statistics-hey,supply is less & demand is high.Why not make a business model around this? Personally I believe day trading stocks is losing it's former glory .Significant amount of tax issue aside,algos are increasingly becoming the dominant force there.How do you beat a fast machine?By building an even faster machine or by doing something machines can't do (aka relying on discretionary skills & intuition).In coming years,I don't see any potential there for anyone besides quants-in other words retail traders won't be fighting there for very long.Many old timer pit traders/tape readers already left the business. Apart from ES & a few other instruments ,algos are not replicating in a viral manner here in futures yet.I wouldn't be so quick to conclude as essentially both are trading-facts about stocks trading industry & futures trading industry are interchangeable.I think here in futures trading ,discretionary traders still have a few years left ahead of them & unlike their stock market twins- mammoth discretionary firms here are not yet nearly extinct. That gives hope for people like me to still talk about trading here rather than pursuing a different route to make a living .Another hope is,IMO price action haven't changed & will always remain the same essentially.Confidence game will always follow wherever there's money,it's our part as countermeasure to always keep gathering knowledge & have a rational judgment to make ourselves impervious to such game.
What What I was suggesting is this TST may basically be a scam: TST training may not be winning training and they may be simply giving back a small amount, via funded accounts, of what they make from their Combine fees. There are quite a few complaints online about TST that seem to have the ring of truth and there are other firms who have done this. Again, I would be shocked if any of the few "simulation wizards" were allowed to lose serrious money before being fired or told they needed to pay more money for more training. ...but I do not know this for a fact. ___ Here Is The Way One Real Trading Firm Handled Simulator Training: Shoenfeld used to train aproved applicants to day trade stocks, have winning traders teach them on-site, and fully fund them. Some were eventually trading accounts worth many millions. Of course Shoenfeld was a real self clearing trading firm. They truly needed the traders they taught to win!!! Alas, they stopped this program years ago and fired hundreds of traders when manual daytrading got tougher. But they are still around and active in other ways: Quants, a few older traders they kept, working deals with traders who bring their own money, etc.
Demand...interesting topic.How do you think guys, whats in demand on the market(not related to trading,but broad market.) now?
Yes,I got that earlier but deliberately tried to avoid talking about that in a direct open manner because I can see below TST is one of the supporting partners here of ET forum & I didn't think doing so would be a wise idea.I would advise others against that too,dealing with a potentially sensitive topic.As much as I like freedom of speech & everything,we've to take matters to discuss in the context of situational awareness. But I hold my believe still-TST is doing more good than harm to the trading community ,at the end of the day.
Could you be a little more specific ,please? If you meant market not related to trading but broad market it can mean a broader market with trading as still a subset of that or it could be financial markets in general or just market of general consumers of assorted varieties,also it can mean a short lived demand or demand building over a long period of time.A generalized idea would be to look into the now trending list provided by some search engines (Google/Yahoo) for shorter term demand.
It would be interesting to know the demand in this area you`ve mentioned: 'general consumers of assorted varieties'. Sorry for the little off top
It's ok,no problem. But firstly,I've to admit -I'm not fully capable of discussing anything in depth apart from trading .I consider any information unrelated to trading unnecessary for myself & try my best to forget it at the earliest chance I get. If I have to-I would assume the demand in assorted varieties' general consumers currently is anything that has to do with social connection-anything that can give man the access to the facilities that a society can offer from the comfort from his own home,in the fastest & most effective way possible. To give example-people used to go out in family dinner to enjoy the company of each other in a quality ambiance.Now they simply order pizza,while taking a bite from that-they look into the smartphones at their hand or their laptop on their lap,still looking for the company of each other of the millions of people spread all over the world.We want to go for shopping-Uber comes in handy,while we're shopping -Groupon comes in handy,we finish shopping -we don't forget to leave a review at Yelp.Consumer behavior at any specialty is increasingly influenced by the opinion of others,to be specific-by opinions found online.People eat,people travel-they post pics of them there in Instagram.People feel excited or down-Twitter or Facebook comes in play.People start to do weird things in social medias in the hope of getting a celebrity status. I would say-most people spend about 2 hours a day everyday in various social media or forums/chatrooms.Where people spend so much time,very naturally they get influenced by that in their everyday decision -including consumer decision .Whenever I decide to buy any trading course,the first thing I do is read every positive & negative reviews available online on that ,then try to make my own mind calculating how many of them sounded genuine & whether they're mostly positive.Truth is,I trust opinions of people I never met in life & almost certainly I'm never going to meet.I don't know-how many of them are real or how many are paid reviews or written by the service vendor himself hiding his identity. At first,it may appear that it all has to do with virtualization/ digitalization of our life.But what really is play in here is social connection.Man is a social creature-can't ignore that,what we're doing is essentially replicating our real society inside various social medias.From a social science perspective,the phases of human interaction are-seeking/adding value,comfort ,rapport , connection & so on and on.We're still pretty much stuck at the initial value phase,people post pics of their Lamborghini /Paris tour-seeking popularity .Popularity is just a tool of adding value. Society was born in face of need for evolutionary survival .So,where does that leaves us with popularity? Say a highly popular member & a less popular member of our society fell into some illness at the same time-who would you think will receive more visit/affection & offers to provide help?The person with highest connection have access to more resources that ensures his survival.It's well established that our brain can't distinguish between imaginary & real stimuli,so essentially human beings are trying to build popularity in virtual world-just like they're programmed to do in real world,using internet as just a medium. Why do we seek reviews/ opinions of others before our purchase? Back in time,say one time I felt ill after consuming some wild berries while I was hungry .Don't you think ,next time I try some other berries I'll ask around my group to find out whether anyone suffered from poisoning from these berries before trying them?If I see someone is going to try the berries I ate earlier -I would stop & offer my advice to not to eat those.So,after being exposed to this process for thousands of years-our Amygdala/emotional brain still seeks opinions of others before trying anything new to ensure our safety,despite the overwhelming counter signals we receive from our prefrontal cortex/logical brain that is well aware that things aren't the same in virtual world.In the end,it's more comforting for our brain. I often like to say-price action haven't changed & will always remain essentially the same.Similar thing here-human behavior haven't changed & will always remain essentially the same.We just found & will continue to find new channels of expressing the same behavior in a million different ways. I suspect we're just wetting our feet in the initial phase of social connection .In coming days,we'll progress to later phases.Anything that has to do with later phases or increases efficacy in there is probably going to rule in future.I suggest you take a look at the anthology series "Black Mirror".Virtual reality & 3D printing are going to be a thing. Things that have to do with our basal instincts such as-food,home,society ,livelihood will always have demand.Then there are some disruptive demands that we don't know we need them until they're offered to us.Think iPod,until it's launched-no one was craving for such product .After it's launched ,everyone wants to get a piece of his own.For an understanding of such disruptive events-take a look at the books "Blue Ocean Strategy","Thinkertoys" & "Brainsteering".
I understand your points.The moral is that people need to learn their own way to see the price action at work.