"People on this thread forget that theSE guys don't owe their trader shit." In this business, it's the traders who have all the leverage, not the owners. Without you, they have no firm...but we have numerous other options. Obviously, this isn't charity. Someone is going to make money off of you. If you're lucky, you will end up with guys who actually do give a shit about you.
True, although if someone goes through their capital contribution but is at least making money gross, the firm normally will not ask for anymore contribution.
Well now that I understand that you would have to put up risk money at either place you go then why limit yourself to the firms you look at. I am sure there are a lot of firms out in NY that would let you put up 5-10K and train you. The two that come to mind that have been talked about on this board are Lynx in NY/Andover which I know provides training and Caliber Trading which is at Hold Brothers but provides structured training. I am sure there are many groups like this out there in NY that do the same thing.
didn't realize hold brothers started requiring capital down, and no longer offered a draw. my mistake.
Also this is just a personal opinion but if I was starting out right now I would probably be looking at zero money prop futures trading firms. That seems to be where a lot of the big money is right now. The firms are on the rise while stock trading firms are on the decline. On an interesting side note, several of the big cheese traders at Holds mostly trade the SPY and QQQ which kind of shows you what they are doing with individual stocks at the moment.
Thanks for the reply-I have to say that I have always tried to be odjective when looking at things. I have met with both Steve Hold and Walter. They both seemed like decent people. They both seemed like typical Wall Street I like people like that. THEY WANT TO MAKE MONEY!!! People on this thread forget that theSE guys don't owe their trader shit. People on this threAd act like Worldco or Hold Brothers has an obligation to keep employees. Get real!! It's a business people. I'm just happy that I got someone to sponsor me for the exams. No one else on Wall Street would do it and Walter stepped up to the plate and offered me a shot. The guy deserves more credit than most people give him, I think. I mean, I'm not on the inside, but it seems that everyone is crying now that the pump and dump days of the late 90's is over. Most of it was fraud people, not fundamental, it is over, be happy with 10 percent if you are lucky. Changing times make for changing business strategies. Hence, both of these companies are makiing changes If it was your business, you would do the same thing. It's called business, not a hand out. I was recently told that my mentor at Worldco would not be able to have me on his team because of the market conditions. He seemd like a decent guy and a very very good trader. As a result, I went to Hold Brothers to see if they had options there. If there are any traders that read this from Hold Brothers or Worldco that are intersted in taking me on their team (and aren't cry babies) get in touch with me and it might be the difference between me going to one firm or the other. I have 5k that I will initialy put in. (Maybe 10)If you're only interested in milking the commisions from my account please don't reply. I'M LOOKING FOR A TOP TRADER TO TRADE WITH. If that doesn't happen, then I'll sit on the sidelines for a while. In my opinion, you might as well have no mentor at all unless it is a top guy. I have an MBA and I'm no A-Hole beginner trader-My trading days of the late 90 got me up in the 200s from a 5K initial deposit in my e-trade account. Unfortunatley, I lost most of it in the early 2000 meltdown. Mainly because I didn't have someone to learn from-I need a good mentor. If anyone has a good suggestion about working with a QUALITY mentor at either of these firms, let me know please. I want to start at either firm in the very enar future. I have good insight of the business and a keen knoweldge of the market and trend/fundamental/technical and news making moves. l To all, good trading, never look back. If you do, don't trade!!!! Pumpandump
I have to totally disagree with this statement. I traded at Jersey City for over a year and did well enough to open my own satellite office in Monmouth County in '02. I can tell you that there is virtually no difference in being at Jersey City or elsewhere. Technology has changed...... heck read this article http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/03/07/speed.record/index.html Back in the late 90's, branch offices used servers and it was very unreliable and the T-1 connections were still iffy. But now 5+ years later, PT2PT T-1's costs are 1/4 of what they were, servers are no longer necessary, and the service level of the T1 has been flawless. Now the technology for a branch office is managed at JC, not onsite. It's almost as if I was still sitting in one of the rows !!!!!! Banker
Well I know about 5 traders still trading with Hold Brothers outside of Jersey City that would not agree with you. I also traded there in a west coast office for a short time last year and left because the technology was so poor. Part of it is that they cut their direct lines to many of the satellite offices. Also they are pulling their NYSE quotes from a secondary provider which is a lot slower then getting their own quotes from the NYSE. Like I said I am only stating things from my experience and from people I know who trade there.
I trade in the Scottsdale office and the system is a piece of shit compared to what it was even a year ago. Greg yanked our direct lines to save a buck and our volume went down after. So he took more and people left to go trade on better systems and our volume went down more. So a few months ago he yanked our direct quote feed and put us through Jersey city for quotes and they are delayed now. I don't know where Monmouth is, but if you are a few thousand miles away from Jersey, not having everything direct hurts the reliability and speed of the system. It is getting close to where I could trade from home on a cable modem and be as fast as the crap he is pumping our quotes on now. The same thing goes for the Irvine CA office. Don't ask me why I am still there, because I definately wonder whyI am there still also. He blames stuff on our volume, but before he started yanking technology we were doing plenty of volume, and then we slowed down because when my quotes are slow, I don't get as many shares as I would normally, and some people went back to Andover since the system started to suck, so our shares have gone down at about the same pace of him yanking tech.
There can be a small difference if you are that far away... even up to 70ms, but it should be the same whether you were at Andover or anyone else. Everybody still travels over the same fiber lines. I definitely do not notice any difference between JC or Monmouth..... but I am only 40 miles from JC.... quite a bit less than 3000 miles. Banker