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Haircut is a term commonly used at many prop firms. Maybe their definition of it is different than yours.

Haircut is not applied the same at all firms. Usually you can leverage up 6.7x with no haircut charge. Some firms charge you an annualized percentage on amounts over that on a sliding scale, like 7-10x at 6%, 10-20x at 8%, etc. Some firms have complicated formulas that are hard to decipher...

Today sucked. -4940 on 96,000 shares. Most of the damage from MDT, had two positions in it in two accounts and got spanked extra hard twice! Not one, but two retarded trades in HIG didn't help either.

The spoos give us an indication of where the cash market is expected to open. From that we can figure where we expect each stock to open. If it opens too low, we want to own it, if it opens too high, want to be short. It's as simple as that. If the market opens up 1% and I get long a stock...

Probably partial fills and breaking positions up into smaller orders. For instance in one account today, I actually only had 8 trades, but my execution report shows about 50 executions as I broke my orders up and got hit on them in pieces.

+5189 90,800 shares About 70% from opening orders and related strategies.

Shorting penny stocks isn't illegal. It's up to the broker to decide if they will extend you margin on a penny stock, since a short sale requires margin.

$3700 104,000 shares. Pretty dead day, most of it came from longer term positions that moved in the right direction.

I trade remotely on Hydra and have found it to be pretty good. It's modeled on the Hammer/Anvil platforms from Assent. It's extremely fast if you are a scalper. A few features need to be added before I'd be 100% sold on it. For example, you can't sort your positions in any way (symbol...

First 5 fig day of the year for me. +13k on 170,000 shares. Traded in 5 accounts, so no blotter.

You've got the calculation correct. One thing is to make sure you are using nyse-only data for your closing prices. Most data vendors let you specify the source of the quote. If not you might get screwy ecn prints that will throw your calculations off. I apply the beta # to the...

I have one. How do you decide how you skew your envelopes and have you compared the results to what you'd get with the same envelope on both sides? I always use the same envelope on both sides and am usually pretty well balanced long and short. To me skewing envelopes equates to guessing...

I'd say if you can average 1 to 2 cents net per share traded you will do very very well. The more shares you trade though, the harder it is to keep that average up. However if you can produce good numbers all it takes is time and capital appreciation to scale up and make lotsa dough.

Intraday margin is no cost. One of the firms I'm at charges fed funds +1.75% for interest on overnights and pays fed funds minus 1% for cash and short interest in your account. Haircut is on top of that. It varies per firm where it kicks in and how much, but it can be a lot more than the...

There are definitely firms that will let you carry heavy leverage on overnight positions. It's dependant on what you are trading, it's volatility, hedges, your track record, how well the principals or risk dept of the firm know you and of course how much capital you have. In the right...

Bullets? What prop firm have you been trading at for the last two years?

It's all about buying power, for me anyway. I trade at home and don't need or want to be in an office. But I employ strategies that need millions of dollars in buying power to be viable. I'd probably take a 80% pay cut if i traded with retail margin, and I've got a 6 fig retail account...

Nassau, I agree with you on the point of receiving a cut of a traders p/l and expenses in exchange for mentoring. That's a common and very fair arrangement, after all you are giving them a career. I don't believe the deal discussed in this thread included that though. It's true I...

Not true Adam. I opened an account with a retail LLC last year. I put up $15,000. The account is in my name. 100% of the profits are mine. I have millions of dollars in intra day buying power. I trade anything I want, any style I want, no volume requirements. I pay no software fees...

I agree, buying power is meaningless because if you are at a prop or pro shop, you generally don't worry about it, you just worry about trading. To me, I have way more bp than I'd ever use, meaning I just take every good trade I see and size relative to how much risk I feel i'm taking. The...