career trader advice needed

O

oldbroker

Not sure where to post this but here looks good after reading lots of posts.

I'm looking for a little career guidance.

I used to be a a stock broker ( mid 80's - 90's) was very good for a stock cowboy but the commission model died ( at least for me).

I also traded the firm's account (20k ,5-1 so I traded 100k) on a monthly settlement basis. Very good profit every month, worst I ever did was breakeven. Doing good trading with an IRA account now. Don't need classes or anything. I do tend to carry positions awhile and don't like to trade for the sake of trading. Most trades are monthly, sometimes quarterly although I do a lot trading during earnings season and a lot of short puts 15 days out most every month, covered calls too.

I was looking for a way to do this kind of trading again ( with leverage and the ability to hold a while)....don't have much cash though...had no idea about prop firms and the like...didn't exist that I knew of back in the day...seems like what I was looking for but thanks to this forum I've found that most don't seem to be too safe.

Any tips or suggestions?
 
Quote from oldbroker:

Not sure where to post this but here looks good after reading lots of posts.

I'm looking for a little career guidance.

I used to be a a stock broker ( mid 80's - 90's) was very good for a stock cowboy but the commission model died ( at least for me).

I also traded the firm's account (20k ,5-1 so I traded 100k) on a monthly settlement basis. Very good profit every month, worst I ever did was breakeven. Doing good trading with an IRA account now. Don't need classes or anything. I do tend to carry positions awhile and don't like to trade for the sake of trading. Most trades are monthly, sometimes quarterly although I do a lot trading during earnings season and a lot of short puts 15 days out most every month, covered calls too.

I was looking for a way to do this kind of trading again ( with leverage and the ability to hold a while)....don't have much cash though...had no idea about prop firms and the like...didn't exist that I knew of back in the day...seems like what I was looking for but thanks to this forum I've found that most don't seem to be too safe.

Any tips or suggestions?
More...

You should, based on what you have said be a good bit ahead of most?

You should also have the required $25K + risk capital after being working in the game!

But, you are where you are.

You can easily get access to trade $100K with $5K cash up front, or 20:1 leverage, but you will have to more than likely pay a monthly software fee of about $160 and possibly an 80% to 90% payout of your profits.

Far better to try and get a loan of the $25K from family or friends, but you must be honest and never risk the $25K that they have trusted you with - the risk capital is then your own cash, and if you don't have at least $5K cash then you should not be seriously considering trading!

If you are swingtrading, then you can look at using SSF's, as the margin is less (more buying power), but the spreads will be wider on most stocks.

Of course you can always trade the YM or ES, some brokers on this site advertise just $300 daytrading margin, but you need to be good and fast, or else it will be just like all the FX brokers that offer 400:1 leverage.

You can always borrow the $25K from a bank, but not too many will give you a loan for trading, especially now:D

If you have no family or friends that will loan you the money, then the best bet is prob the prop firm, but pick a good one and check them out, and above all make sure that if the go belly up your cash is covered under the insurance scheme - for they can go belly up at any time, no matter how long they have been around, look at how many thought Madoff was a genuine and sincere man!
 
great info, thanks! doing more research here on the topic and learning a lot.....looks like Bright or echo trading....I can raise the $'s through selling some assets but it will take a while....seems like there are a lot of companies that do this but not a lot of stable ones
 
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