Just to clarify, WorldCo does not hire traders (I totally understand that), and their traders get a percentage of the profits with the balance kept in their accounts (as per the above example). OK, that makes sense. We offer 100% of the profits, and want our traders to keep $15K in their accounts. A little different, and just another personal choice. Everyone should consider all aspects of any new business venture, trading or otherwise.
as far as the posts on the software outages, I worked at Morgan and Merrill for almost 4 years... both used ILX systems that maybe went out 2 or three times over those 4 years...and that was all the way up here in Albany...not down the street from the NYSE...so for anyone to say that ILX is to blame, I find that hard to believe...thats my 2 cents uptik2000
Visited the Worldco office today, (got tour of two buildings..), and wanted to say that I was fairly impressed by the magnitude of the company and their trading floors. 700+ traders including offices in SF, FL.. From what I understood, Worldco doesn't require college grads from certain schools with high gpa's to put up anything, and maybe a few thousand at most otherwise. In that way, it sounds like a pretty good place to learn trading if you're young and hungry without risk to one's personal capital. From what i gathered from the trader who invited me, management selects newbies on a case-by-case basis.. and tiers them from day one, and does constant evaluations rewarding you with dot size/commission change, payouts, etc. They can determine after several months if this new trader has the potential to be successful, if he will be looked upon as a future partner in the firm's efforts to expand, receiving added benefits (like company stock options, running trading desk).. the flipside is that you can be looked upon as a mere customer if you are what traders refer to as, "mooks"?. i'm assuming that's someone who doesn't make money. i used to work at nomura, we called those guys, scum. but that's just plain business on the street. fair. I hear a good many great traders were born in worldco, and whether they're still there or not, they learned from there. and that's what makes the place seem so interesting. There's supposedly this guy who made half a million in *one day* on market on close orders some time ago.. and guys who make 6 digits in a day basket trading on certain occasion. i am not bs'ing, he showed me his P&L. I'll be checking out some other places this week, so I'll post something here, unless anyone has a problem with that. stone roses
Wrong, Hitman, I was making money and I left on a good term with a positive account. Like I mentioned before I had to take a long leave to take care of some family business. I actually thought about going back to Worldco after I came back but I'm glad that I made a decision going somewhere else. True that Worldco will match up with my current commission which is a lot less than 1c but my employer will also match whatever Worldco offers. It's also true that Worldco does reward their traders who are making money well. Worldco was already giving me less than 1c, no ticket and 97.5% payout at the time of my leave. But I'd rather pay 1.5c for RediPlus (or anything else) than 0.5c for Belzberg which is what Worldco uses. Any serious traders know that commission and execution are the most important factors but unfortunately Worldco had failed the latter. I completed my kindergarten and elementary education on daytrading at Worldco and I decided to move on and try something else. Fair enough? I just want to clarify that my previous comments were not directly at you personally since you're getting paid for doing it but rather some truthful information which will be useful to others. It's unfair to mislead people and they'll end up hating Worldco when they find out the hard way.
Aeries: That was a better review, while we all have our opinions, of course. As I said, we can not run the second largest firm in the U.S. without a solid execution system. Think about it, we are not stupid, you can come to us with nothing and build experience/capital, the only way we make SERIOUS money is if you are somewhat successful doing what you do. Once you are successful, we will do whatever we can to keep you. If our order entry system is no where near other firm's do you honest think we can keep our high powered guns. I mean, we are not interested in training profitable traders for other firms, we want them for ourselve and try to take them away from others. We won't be competitive without being at least up to the standard of our competitors. You are entitled to your opinion of course, but other's mileage may vary. Shortee: Schonfeld & FSNY provide roughly half the payout of someone starting out at Worldco, enough said.
I would strongly recommend that anyone that is new to trading chose a firm that has an extensive training program and does not require you to put any money up. I believe Schonfeld and First New York securities have by far the best reputation when it come to training and producing the most successful traders. However one difference between these two firms and most others is that they are very very selective in whom they chose. In the case of First New York securities they actually pay a decent salary to start but if didn't graduate from a IVY league have high grades don't waste your time applying.
Well, I'm relatively new to this entire proprietary trading business. But I'm not new to the securities/investment since I was on the institutional side previously. However, I have noticed there has been some rather irksome outages(net down) and software execution slowness at times at my firm as well. I think the problem is probably universal to some extent, but probably worst at some places than others. There are two general classes of problems: 1) avoidable 2) unavoidable. For the avoidable ones, you can have power backup, broadband backups, redudanct systems, very stable computer systems,etc. For unavoidable ones, then I guess you'll just have to suck it up or have stops at the time of entry. So, I now that hear almost everyone bitches about it, it makes me feel a lot better in some twisted ways cuz it means it's just not localized problem..
Aries: I trade at WorldCo, your incorrect because the guy who sits to the left of me uses Redi-Plus. Perhaps they didn't have it when you were there, so you can't knock WorldCo's execution system when you don't have all your facts straight.
Once again what I find interesting is this: Why are the trading firms with the best reputation who produces the best traders those that are very selective in choosing who they decide will trade at the firm and require no money down and have anywhere from a 12 to 18 month training program. While most other trading companies will basically accept anyone off the street as long as they have money to put down. Charge people for a few days or a weeks worth of training or in some cases no training at all and convince people to join on selling them on a dream. I find these two business models quite interesting so before you select a trading firm ask yourself which business model is the one I'm joining fit in.
This is an interesting observation, and an informed one. I would like to point out a couple of points however. The basic premise of "hiring traders" and thus the business model has faded considerably in recent years. Yes there are still firms who have made a "hybrid" system available, where they don't ask for initial capital. This is a pretty viable training ground. But realize this...after you are making $$ with that firm, you have to leave that money in (at least a percentage of it), so you actually do have money at risk. You do split profits (which is like paying the firm back exponentially for letting yo in), and those who "don't make it" (most), aren't there anymore. There is nothing wrong with that system. The model we chose was to attract traders who are willing to put up a small amount of risk capital (the same as every retail trader must), and give the benefits of proprietary trading and let them keep all of their profits. Our firm has grown by 40% per year for a decade, and I feel that our business model has worked well for the traders (or else we would have gone the way of so many other firms). 2001 was the best year ever for our traders, and we are hoping to make 2002 even better. Please understand that I am not arguing with you about your comments, just pointing out the differences. We simply attract a different type of trader. We do seem to get a great number of traders from other firms who have done a good job in training them. Good Luck to everyone!