ghco, chicago

Hello everyone. I am new to Elite Trader. A friend told me about it this afternoon. Actually, I am new to message posting. But I've been pleasently surprised poking around the Elite Trader site and looking through the posts.

I am in the market for a firm right now and have a few interviews coming up. I am focusing on the futures world and wondering what people have heard about these and other firms. Any recommendations or words of warning beyond what I have read about GH?

Some info I can offer that may be helpful to others:
Kingstree's desk fees are approx $6000 and Geneva approx $4000. Altea's is much lower but has an expensive commision structure and I believe they try the non-compete thing too.
 
Kamdoo,

I've read a number of your posts and it looks like you know what you're doing for someone that's going to be a fresh grad. If I were you I'd take the FA job at MS and learn to trade on the side. An FA position at MS will look more favorable on your resume and will help you open up doors later on in your career. If you jump into prop trading and fail, it obviously is not going to help you much at all later. Just my 2 cents...

good luck!
 
i've thought about that as well. Problem is i'm 24.

lets say i'm an fa...i'll be on board even if i'm terrible for at least 2 years, but most likely longer because the client book is already full...chance for failure is pretty low. That makes me 26-27.

Around that time, unless I became a recent grad out of a masters in fin math, i'm a bit old for this kind of trading. I would need to be a recent grad of sorts I believe.

Someone correct me if i'm wrong...but hitting that 27-28 range is getting old for this kind of prop trading. The only kind of people i've heard of getting hired around late 20's- 30 or 31 are people looking to be quants or quant traders...and those positions are pretty rare and mainly out of the question.

I figure I can land a role being a broker at any point in my life. The average of a smith barney broker is about 40 i think.

Trading will only be available when I'm older. And the experience at a prop shop (even say ones that make you put up capital) wont be respected in general, i don't think it will hurt landing an FA position. Right?
 
Never been and not interested in prop trading, but I am curious as to why they care about "hiring" younger traders. I hardly see a difference between a 22 and 28 year old, although I have heard that they are only interested in the priors. Thanks.
 
when you say, "hire" in quotes, you seem to refer to prop shops that are more like arcades.

you throw down some money, and they give you some leverage...so you are more or less a customer.

Thats not the kind of prop trading i'm talking about. Arcades will take anybody...you don't even need a high school diploma.

The places that seem to have a bias towards young folks offer a salary. You could walk into a place like assent and be 45 years old; they'll take you if you got the cash.
 
Quote from ciberkuba:

Any recommendations or words of warning beyond what I have read about GH?

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Unfortunately, you won't find many comments about GH on Elitetrader, not because people don't post anything about them, but because GH has Elitetrader (not exactly sure how they do it, maybe a payout, threat of lawsuit?) delete any negative comments about the firm. Obviously they wouldn't delete anything positive, so naturally you won't find anything them on this site. Although, there is probably still a post from Chris Hehmeyer himself threatening people with a lawsuit, but he does list his number, so I suggest you give him a call.

In regards to kamadoo, I was pretty much in the same boat as you were about a couple of years ago, only I was in a different city. Yes, GH did move into a new office in Chicago about a couple of years ago so naturally I assume they have a nice looking office. But their other offices (NYC, etc.) pretty much look like all your other daytrading firms (Echo, Assent, etc.). And I pretty much choose GH for the same reason you are leaning towards them now (i.e. salary, being paid during training, keep around for 1 year, etc.) and yes compared to Echo, Assent, etc. GH is infinetely more professional. So at that time, GH was an obvious choice. But I have recently moved on to a different futures prop firm, I won't say who, because I don't want to seem like I am promoting them, but having some basis of comparison, GH in my opinion is one of the worst deals and most of the training I recieved there I had to unlearn them to achieve success as a trader. Also after moving onto my current firm, I realized that GH really really really limits your rate of success in comparison to my current firm. So my advice to you, is to do more legwork and look into more purely futures prop firms and not stock trading firms like Echo, Assent, because in my opinion for some reason, it seems the purely futures prop firms runs there business in a more professional manner.
 
Quote from showtime23:

Unfortunately, you won't find many comments about GH on Elitetrader, not because people don't post anything about them, but because GH has Elitetrader (not exactly sure how they do it, maybe a payout, threat of lawsuit?) delete any negative comments about the firm. Obviously they wouldn't delete anything positive, so naturally you won't find anything them on this site. Although, there is probably still a post from Chris Hehmeyer himself threatening people with a lawsuit, but he does list his number, so I suggest you give him a call.

In regards to kamadoo, I was pretty much in the same boat as you were about a couple of years ago, only I was in a different city. Yes, GH did move into a new office in Chicago about a couple of years ago so naturally I assume they have a nice looking office. But their other offices (NYC, etc.) pretty much look like all your other daytrading firms (Echo, Assent, etc.). And I pretty much choose GH for the same reason you are leaning towards them now (i.e. salary, being paid during training, keep around for 1 year, etc.) and yes compared to Echo, Assent, etc. GH is infinetely more professional. So at that time, GH was an obvious choice. But I have recently moved on to a different futures prop firm, I won't say who, because I don't want to seem like I am promoting them, but having some basis of comparison, GH in my opinion is one of the worst deals and most of the training I recieved there I had to unlearn them to achieve success as a trader. Also after moving onto my current firm, I realized that GH really really really limits your rate of success in comparison to my current firm. So my advice to you, is to do more legwork and look into more purely futures prop firms and not stock trading firms like Echo, Assent, because in my opinion for some reason, it seems the purely futures prop firms runs there business in a more professional manner.
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You still did not answer the question though, why is there age discrimination in favor of young 20-somethings? Thanks.
 
thanks for the info.

I can't believe that the assent/echo offices in NY look like the GH office in Chicago....a.k.a looks very nice. Not that the don't, its just that the offices out in CA were no where near comparison in terms of looks only.

Does anybody have some pics/can confirm?
 
Quote from saturnine:

You still did not answer the question though, why is there age discrimination in favor of young 20-somethings? Thanks.
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It's so that they can be brainwashed. Older the new employee, the likelihood that he/she's been taught or learned other trading methods increases.
 
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