Prop Trading

It does sound a little bit too good to be true. I heard the terminals alone (well of course depending on the equipment there) cost a couple of thousands a month. Whereas wait, maybe 0,01 per share is high. And since it’s day trading you’re going to open and close positions all day long. Let’s say on your first day you invest your complete levered 10k @ 10$/share, it’s already 200 bucks in and out. Do this again on 4 different other stocks @ 10$/share and you’ve already gave the guy 10% of your initial deposit, all else equal. It seems to me that it could go pretty fast. But assuming the shop is legit, and you don’t have any other offers, I guess giving a shot @ day trading for 10K seems like an option as defendable as being here on AF in 10 months saying you passed level II and still out of a job and wonder how to get into ER. Just saying.

Huh, terminals costing thousands a month? He’ll be using a computer with internet connection, won’t be a lot…

^ maybe he was talking about BBG, Reuters and the like I’d give this a go if nothing more interesting showed up :slight_smile:

Well…losing a 10k deposit over X amount of time, you’ve be better off working at mcdonalds! Anyways you’ll get a much better idea after seeing the training.

Spreads- Right now my biggest concern is jumping right into this having recently graduated. A: I loose my cash but im back in square one with no experience. B: Say i make it a year or two and im bored/ready to move on; what are my opportunities? Are these qualities transferable or is it kinda like being good at poker, nobody cares unless your at a casino? Is this kind of experience something that would get me anywhere near a decent MBA in 2-3 years? Not top just decent. I have taken your advice and been reading for hours on elitetrader and found this about the Lockup actually before i met him and I was the one to bring it up in the interview first. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=208374 What do you think? The leverage seems standard though for people just getting started from the other companies that ive seen. He said depending on my performance 20x was not out of the question. Ya the rates did seem high. but now that i think about it maybe that was total for the buy and sell? Ill add that to the list of things to clarify. He did say that i was not required to make X amounts of trades a day or anything like that. He was saying that if we can post some good profits that he was planning on getting money from “investors” in a year or so. At that point i wouldn’t be trading with my money but rather the firms and then my payout would go down to 50% or so. The training lasts 3+ weeks on a simulator(paper trading?) and then after that all real time Viceroy- It does sound to good to be true. Ive been creeping on elitetrader lots lately reading about red flags to watch for and not a single thing ive read about has happened. The biggest is the training and if they charge for it(sometimes a few thousand), but he doesn’t. I was also thinking the software and news services were expensive, if nothing else all the computers have to be a couple grand, plus rent, internet. Ya ill need to check into what the trading fees are, i must have screwed that up. Ha, that is a great way to look at it. There are other opportunities that i can take but this is easily the most exciting.

That whole ‘get money from investors’ is just fucking weird…that is not something you hear very often at all, and what are the investors going to be promoted with your 6 months-1 year track record? If they’re using his trading then you’d think it was something already established? And to be honest when I hear comments along the line of ‘I want to start my own fund’ it’s more often than not failed traders or flash in the pans (ala Tim Skyes). Because really what’s the incentive for a succesful trader to deal with that? The only benefit is if you’re using very significant amounts of OPM; any guy with a decent stake can get the leverage elsewhere. I don’t know what to say about the paper trading, it’s kinda standard for a lot of second rate firms and not a good guage either…but like I said if you can see for yourself the actual trades being conducted by the trainers you’ll know if these guys have a viable strategy. I just think the ‘pure day-trader’ equity edges have by and large been snuffed out via ALGO efficiency, a lot tougher to grind out money than even a few years ago (aside from the anomaly yr of 2008). Trading will not help you in any future endeavor unless you’re applying for a trading job, which almost don’t exist; however, the best time to attempt something like this is when you’re young in your twenties and not giving up a steady income trying to support a family and kids. Before you do anything else look into that 1 yr. lockup period…you don’t want to risk delays or not getting your money back at all if at anytime you decide to leave.