ghco, chicago

Quote from yenzen:

Mr Kamikaze:

Thats the best post on ET in quite some time. Ur a man of many insights.

Regards

Senor Zen
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Thankyou. If anyone wants be pay me a huge salary to be their private mentor then I am always willing, LOL, it would certainly beat trading these current markets. That is why I laugh at the risk-managers that most firms employ, as NO risk-manager I have ever met seemed to grasp any of what I have just said, they consequently fuel the burn-out process for most newbies and even experienced guys by just giving the same old non-specific advice time after time and never tailoring it to the individual. Amazingly it is in this capacity that most risk-types are most lethal, as a struggling trader (even an experienced one) will often listen to ANY advice, like a degenerate gambler who will take ANY tip on the next race; people love tips after all!!

I love teaching newbies, and yet my talents have never been recognised even though I feel that I have far more to offer than the dead-beats most firms employ to coach new grads, I always wanted to set-up a desk intra-firm to teach and yet was never taken up on it. The firms were always looking for todays shooting star (tomorrow's burn-out) to keep growing thinking that one day they would be the next Tommy Baldwin to teach all the newbies, never realizing that my solidly consistent smaller profits were more sustainable long-term and that it would be better to train newbies that way.

These firms are obsessed with high-rollers, and are always looking out for the next boom-bust high-flyer (self-taught of course). What is also amazing is that from a risk management perspective you cannot have too many HOT-SHOTS in the office, as you need some variety in your traders to spread the risk out. Yet these places still seem obsessed with encouraging naturally great traders to keep trading bigger and bigger and bigger until they bust. The desire for fast money seems to infect most prop firms management too. What seems to escape their attention is that the shooting stars as I like to call them are great USUALLY at only one market type, and so by the time that conditions change over a couple of years time-span they are then trading their biggest ever position sizes and when they fail to adapt, the adage "well we know his potential" seems to insist that the former shooting star trades the same new size until the lot is pissed away. As I said some of the biggest and once-upon-a-time best traders I have seen who made fortunes also often lost the lot (and then some) usually in their 3rd or 4th years. Exceptions do exist however, but blazing successes in my opinion usually are on short-lived after-burner; the consistently profitable boring steady types who add to long-run profits seem to lack the glamour and appeal to ever be given any credit or responsibility in the trading world I know.

Anyone else share my views out there?
 
As the saying goes "If you cant hack it in the buisiness world then teach, if you cant teach then become a coach, if you cant coach become a risk manager."
 
Quote from artis74:

As the saying goes "If you cant hack it in the buisiness world then teach, if you cant teach then become a coach, if you cant coach become a risk manager."
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amen to that.
 
Quote from artis74:

As the saying goes "If you cant hack it in the buisiness world then teach, if you cant teach then become a coach, if you cant coach become a risk manager."
More...

I can hack it and still make money, although I am not what I used to be I still CAN make money. I wanted to teach/coach and trade at the same time; to teach properly you need to be active yourself. I like helping to bring newbies along, and for a cut of their p&l I would be glad to help develop newbies to trade in a disciplined sustainable way, although without the glamour.

Why NOT allow people who trade and are steady making money year after year to do the grooming. People always focus on the high-rollers (same with sports stars) never realizing that the B- grade traders are the ones who cover the sensational losses long-term. Any smart firm would appreciate that the guys who eat well everyday are far more inclined to survive than the guys who adopt the feast or famine approach.

It seems to me that you are implying that you only appreciate the Michael Jordans of the trading world, as if only they would be worthy of training people. Well think about this a team of Michael Jordans in my opinion would be awful as none of them would want to share the ball EVER. They would all be too obsessed with their own glory to set up passes etc, and in the same respect a trading firm that only wants highly leveraged stars is a dangerous place to be, as when they shit hits the fan they are the people that collectively can take firms under. Good firms would appreciate smaller high probabilty returns; the make $1million this year and lose $2million the next is a bull-shit way to be.

If however I have mis-read you statement and you are criticizing their willingness to only allow burn-outs and failures to teach/risk-manage then I agree with you. Some people have a desire to help others and the desire to preach your own gospel is fine as long as you can practice what you preach. However turning to teaching as a last resort is bull shit to me, and should never be allowed. Mentors can be important to long term success as long as they are good ones, you just have to find someone whose opinion you respect and who takes a genuine interest in helping you succeed, as opposed to an appointed one who will lead you into the firing line blindly usually.

Just to state once again. If you do find yourself in the unenviable position of being supervised by a know-nothing story telling pretender then you are best off, totally ignoring all their advice and doing your own thing as at least then you have a chance to success. Following typical failure recipe shelled out by most risk-types is madness. Listen to yourself and your own instincts/judgements first and if you can pick the brains of the consistently profitable guys where possible. I my experience th shooting stars can rarely explain what they do well; which is probably why they rarely last as either they forget themselves or are one-dimensional in their trading style and can only trade one market. I know a guy who for 3 months made $10-15k everyday in summer 2002 when the equities were crashing everyday, unfortunately his only trading skill was holding massive size all the way as the market collapsed, in the slow and average range markets that followed he slowly pissed away all his prior winnings!!!!!!
 
"If however I have mis-read you statement and you are criticizing their willingness to only allow burn-outs and failures to teach/risk-manage then I agree with you. Some people have a desire to help others and the desire to preach your own gospel is fine as long as you can practice what you preach. However turning to teaching as a last resort is bull shit to me, and should never be allowed."

You have. I am all for people who truly want to help advance the careers of young traders but the vast majority of the ones I have some across are Monday morning QB's who couldnt hack it on thier own. Fortunatly allot of us have come across older traders who have taugh us the good from the bad but these guys are the few and the crappy ones are the manny.

There is nothing worse than some jag who couldnt hack it on his own ruining new traders before they even get started.
 
Quote from artis74:

"If however I have mis-read you statement and you are criticizing their willingness to only allow burn-outs and failures to teach/risk-manage then I agree with you. Some people have a desire to help others and the desire to preach your own gospel is fine as long as you can practice what you preach. However turning to teaching as a last resort is bull shit to me, and should never be allowed."

You have. I am all for people who truly want to help advance the careers of young traders but the vast majority of the ones I have some across are Monday morning QB's who couldnt hack it on thier own. Fortunatly allot of us have come across older traders who have taugh us the good from the bad but these guys are the few and the crappy ones are the manny.

There is nothing worse than some jag who couldnt hack it on his own ruining new traders before they even get started.
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I agree and apologize for the confusion, its just that there are so many sarcastic "contribute-nothing" snipers in the waiting on most web-based forums that sometimes it is hard to distinguish between real posters and jerks. I was uncertain of your intent but agree with you that older traders are can have a valuable input in grooming newbies and should be encouraged, unfortunately selfishness and the lack of incentive to help others generally limits good people willing to help. Of course there are always loud mouths who love telling their war-stories of the past, no doubt with some wild exaggeration thrown in to glorify their past exploits (I heard a few today I can tell you) and they will shout their advice from the roof-tops. As I said show a genuine interest and ask questions to the good traders where you work, some may not help and some might. Eitherway NO advice is better than BAD advice.

As I said sorry for confusing you with potential trolls.
 
no worries. that being said I think that places like a GH are excellent for a young trader to learn the ropes in some rather difficult markets right now.
 
Quote from artis74:

no worries. that being said I think that places like a GH are excellent for a young trader to learn the ropes in some rather difficult markets right now.
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The problem is that it is impossible to predict the future of a place like GHCO. I have friends there who tell me that they are having quite a shake-up in the way that they do things. They may improve it or the changes could be damaging, either way it is impossible to predict what their future may hold. I hear that they are ending salaries and so that removes a major advantage for newbies of GHCO and IMO creates uncertainty as to what their future plans are. Other places still offer salaries so if that is your priority then GHCO will no longer be the place for you. GHCO has in the past deviated somewhat from other firms in the way that they ran their program, i.e. with salaries etc. It seems as though they are moving more in line with the rest of the prop shops in London, in offering spilts rather than salaries. If they still insist on the non-compete and offer NO salary then that is madness as you can get a deal with no compete elsewhere, also with no salary then a split of 70% or more is typical (50-60% is not competetive as some firms have offered this as a split which is shit compared to other offering even 80-90%).

I hear that Saxon Financials offer a salary to graduates, and they are supposed to be a good firm relative to the rest of the prop shops. Unfortunately I do not know anyone who works there presently so cannot comment upon their deal.
 
Mr. K,


Everything you said is true of my experiences at my current prop firm. I have been trading for a little over a year now and the only good advice i have got was from a successful trader(who left the company after he recieved his bonus).

The "training" at my firm consisted of adding and subtracting spreads and looking at charts from years ago. Total waste of time.

I just feel like replying to this thread because I thought when I joined the firm that I would actually be taught how to trade when in reality, they just want alot of traders there who can breakeven so they can clean up on commissions and pay out no bonus.

The best advice I ever got from the successful trader that I was referring to earlier was to ignore everything that my boss was telling me to do. I honestly think that if he never told me this I would have never gotten good at trader.

Also he tells me everyday I talk to him that my goal is not to make a big bonus at my current firm, its to get better so I can go trade at the hf he is at or at a much better firm.

I am not sure if GHCO is a firm like mine where they want you to trade 100x a day and be up a few ticks to cover commissions. Well, if it is I like everyone else said find a star trader to get advice from and if your boss tell you to trade more ask to get fired.
 
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