I have been reading your posts for months now wondering who is this cat that "knows it all" and continuously bangs the same old tired drum? Who is this guy that seems to contribute nothing of substance to this message board? I finally figured you out...you're a retail piker! What's the matter, couldn't pass the 7 or 55? Only retail guys get SIPC insurance, professionals don't. Your disadvantage is leverage...you keep playing with that 4:1 intraday. There are many advanatages to going with a prop firm. The main advantage is use of the firms capital. I have an edge in my trading. In fact I have multiple edges that I am working to exploit. How do I best exploit them? With 4:1 buying power and having to commit all my funds to my trading account? That's real smart. NOT! My unlimited buying power provides me a huge edge over you and your .0035 rate all in. I can aggressively pursue my edge in multiple simultaneous strategies. For example, one of my strategies edge is as little as .005 cents but I am still able to bang out money every single day because I can get into the laws of large numbers much faster than someone bound by the constraints of 4:1 margin. More importantly, I know what my risk is with my prop firm, I can't lose more than I put in. Why would I need SIPC insurance? I manage this risk by controlling the amount of capital in my account. By sweeping funds out on a regular basis, I then put my excess capital to work in other investments, these include realestate, coins, and gold. Each of these has significantly outperformed the market for the past 18 months. So you tell me who has the real advantage? The retail piker or the professional prop trader who systemically trades and exploits his edge, manages his systemic risk, individual strategy risk, and firm exposure risk?
As far as bloomberg goes, who has time to read the news and watch for headlines in the middle of the trading day? The tape tells all. I might get caught in the intitial move in the stock, but a quick read of the tape, and quick thinking and reaction on my part and I will on my way out of trouble in a matter of seconds, all the while you are still checking the news and reading the story. Bloomberg is way overrated as a trading tool.
As this applies to trading, the bottom line is this. If all you are worried about is your deal, then you will be out of business very soon. In life, we get what we focus on. If you focus on, and work at becoming a better trader, you will do that. The true edge in trading comes from finding trading strategies that work and systemically exploiting them, fine tuning them, and puling conistent money out of the markets. Not, and I repeat, NOT in shaving an extra 5 or ten basis points off your commission rate. Especially on volume of only a couple million share per month.
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