i trade from home.. i started about 2 years ago trading listed stocks for the spread.. then i moved to trading breakouts and breakdowns on nasdaq stocks.. now my trading is about 50% stocks and about 50% QQQ's.. im currently studying (slowly) for the series 7 exam and will be approching a couple firms to see what they offer.. trading news seems like an interesting game.. do you find that strategy is pretty consistent or does it produce alot of small losses and a few big winners? -qwik
You can all be assured that I am me (although at times on this board I wonder if that is who I want to be).... To the poster who trades from home...you may be interested in our new "Bright-at-Home" trading option which we will be unveiling at the NYC Online Expo next month. (here comes the commercial, so those that want to tune out, do so now). Basically we have been authorized to add 250 fully enabled proprietary (remote) traders in 2002. They will be given full "in-office" benefits and a lower per month fee ($200, which includes Redi for execution and data). If anyone wants more info, feel free to call me directly at: 800.249.7488 Now a question for you QQQ traders...We had two extremely successful offices trading nearly 100% QQQ's in 1999 and the beginning of 2000. The profits have faded considerably since we can no longer get easy arb's between the Amex and Island...any new insights on what is working well these days??
I find trading news inconsistent. It's hard to interpret how the market will react to news. When stocks react bullishly to good news, it's usually at market tops. When they react bearishly to bad news, it's usually at market bottoms. Otherwise, it's "Buy the rumor and sell the news". If your going to be trading the news, I would recommend 'the Fly on the Wall'. They post some good stories before it hits the street.
use fly already and read as much of news as i can before open. analysis of news is most important. not always so easy but i don't really buy into technicals as my only signal. I use them to aide my decisions.
I'm thinking about contacting worldco to trade there. However, one thing seems to bug me.... Is it true that Worldco's primary quote and execution systems have problems on a daily basis? I've got a friend who works there who constantly calls me to bitch about the poor MIS services. Supposedly many of Worldco's traders end up trading off of erroneous or delayed quotes. Hitman, maybe you can give us some info.
A firm is lying to you if they tell you their quote system is 100% reliable. Problems do occur and for the most part it is fixed quickly, the problem is when you are in a losing streak and you desperately need a win, sometimes a problem can happen at the worst possible time, and it may be a machine specific issue that takes the MIS guys a few tries to figure out. I can assure you that as far as reliability is concerned we are up to industry standard. We are a big firm and sometimes you DO have to put up some corporate propaganda to get say additional monitors, just remember that problems occur everywhere, and we even offer rebates when it is clearly our fault that you lost serious money in a trade because of our servers. In conclusion, it is not perfect, nothing is, but it gets the job done.
I agree that no system is 100% reliable. However, some are 99.9%. Firms I worked for in the past had Reuters, Bloomberg, ILX feeds...and they rarely if ever went down. From what I hear, Worldco primarily uses a service called AT Financial, which is one of the more inexpensive quote feeds on the street. Unfortunately, the guy I know who trades there tells me that the system has intermittent outages on a daily basis, especially during peak times. He also claims that MIS always makes announcements over the PA that the problem is on "their" side. If this is true, why does Worldco continue to use their services?
AT Financial was bought out by ILX, those that have worked with both overwhelmingly favor AT. If you have never used either one you will definitely get ILX as we now have a very limited number of AT Financial logins left. As for the guy who said we had outages on a daily basis, I hate to say sour grapes, put let's put it this way, if this is true we wouldn't be in business anymore.
It's true that no system is perfect and it exists in every firm but I have to say that Worldco is an exception. I knew first hand because I used to work there. It's down EVERYDAY always at the most crucial moment. If you have trading experience DON'T go there. I have to admit that it's a great place for people who have never traded in their entire life.