Pee in your pants before showing up for work everyday wearing said pants. They'll fire you inside of 2 weeks.
Anybody Prematurely Sever Their Prop Trading Agreement?
- Thread starter dsguns1
- Start date
Pee in your pants before showing up for work everyday wearing said pants. They'll fire you inside of 2 weeks.
Here is an interesting question......Can the firm legally pick and choose who they want to go after and only go after those people when they feel it would put the firm in any type of jeopardy?
Also, what is the legal rule regarding trading your own account? Escpeially if you are not a liscensed trader, and just an employee.
Also, what is the legal rule regarding trading your own account? Escpeially if you are not a liscensed trader, and just an employee.
Legally they will say that you cannot trade anything they trade within the business territory. So for example if they trade Eurex, Liffe, CME, CBOT futures and options and they consider their core business in the US and the EU then you cannot trade anywhere in those countries on rival prop contracts or for yourself with your own cash. YOU CANNOT COMPETE ON ANY LEVEL THEY SAY. If you trade Euribor/Schatz spreads for them and leave then you cannot go and scalp the Bund as they say that it will compete, you can't even go and trade FTSE or CAC-40 futures as they will say that is competing, you could however go to a prop stock firm, or a hedge fund or an IB or trade spread-betting etc. You can trade just not what they trade. I presume that you trade futures prop at one of two firms I know of in London who have the the non-compete and so I can safely say that you can trade options for Mako or something like that as neither one of them are involved in options. If however you are at an options firm with a non-compete then you could trade futures prop potentially although they could dispute you doing so if you usually hedge your options with futures. The prop futures shops are the biggest villains here as they really try to limit what you do by claiming that nearly everything is in competition with them, the options firms are more specific in what is forbidden once you leave.
Of course you could trade outside the EU or the US or whatever they claim to be their business territory. So Sydney, Cape Town, Toronto etc are all options if you can get a work permit. Eventually I expect offices in places like Dubai for this very reason, Zurich may also be an option as the Swiss aren't EU. If you are in the US then go north of the border for a safe haven good luck.
By the way whoever asked about fast-fills, if you have the Eurex Trader exam then you have fast fills if you passed. It just means that you are not an order router and your trades get priority fill and clearing with the exchange. So if all crashes then you are the priority and will know your position before the order routers. Ask your firm. Of course you should remember why you took that exam to begin with, as fast-fills is the only reason to take it!!
Nice post Kamikaze and thanks for your input. Ive read alot of caselaw about this and I think the big question and why these usually dont hold up in court is that the scope of an agreement saying "cannot trade futures or options" is too broad and is therefore "unreasonable". Is this something you have heard?
Also, what are the rules regarding going to an IB and trading with your own money?
Also, what are the rules regarding going to an IB and trading with your own money?
Yes, there is precedence in Illinois that I'm aware of that rejected non-competes on many levels. A non-compete must be very specific. A business cannot prevent a person from earning a living. You just can't do it using a proprietary system that they have taught you (such as an indicator or style). The law is in favor of the employee in most of these cases, but you have to fight and that is where the real problem is. It will cost a good amount of nickels to fight these cases and protect your right. I don't have particular cases but my lawyer has a list and result for each. I put that stuff away a long time ago.
Yes, they can pick and choose who they pick fights with. This is their prerogative to enforce the contract as they wish.
Agreed, they can go after whoever they like, and let others walk without reprisals. They like to create examples of people however and if you are a big hitter, then they will come after you all guns blazing. If you are a slow and steady wins the race type then you are far more likely to go under their radar without them making too much fuss.
Although occasionally I have seen an exodus of these slow steady consistent types and then suddenly when they realize how damaging it is to let those guys go they quickly make an example of the next poor bastard who tries to follow the well-beaten track. If you are profitable, in a small consistent way and want to leave then try and be the 2nd guy of your breed to walk out on the deal. Let someone else tread the mine-field first, and if he makes it safely then quickly follow in his exact foot-steps. If you allow too many others to lead the way by the time you go to cross over the machine gun posts may already be set up to deter defectors.
