Glad your are sharing!! People here on ET enamored wit htese trade shops dont get full picture
And if you have a bad month or Q, they tell you to F off in heartbeat and ruin your reputation etc.
And if you have a bad month or Q, they tell you to F off in heartbeat and ruin your reputation etc.
Quote from bone:
Find a prop futures firm that is a CME Member Firm.
They are not allowed to take trader/employee deposits - only the firm's principals are allowed to risk capital. (google this, the CME publishes the application form and the rules) The CME will independently audit these firms.
The trader/employees have to be paid on a W-2 (bummer).
Of course, most of these firms are in Chicago, with a smattering in NYC.
BTW, this is the way the Chicago prop firms have always operated - the equity prop business model is, of course, a rip.
You take this deal because you have an edge and you want to trade stupid size. Problem is, you can make $3M a year, which of course you split with the firm - AND THEN, POST SPLIT, and after commissions, expenses, desk fees and IT support fees, and then paying taxes on ordinary income, you net $400K for the year. Been there, done that. Then you realize that you can take your own money, trade 100 lots, and net in your own personal bank account what you did trading stupid big size for the prop firm. The prop firm will nickel and dime and quarter and half-dollar you to death. If they can think of a charge to saddle you with they certainly will.
The firm will make sure that you have paid their complete overhead before they take their split. And it will piss you off to no end. Catered four star lunches, box suites at the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, valet parking, the most expensive real estate lease rates for office space, "IT" support, "ECN" charges, the firm's lawyers and the firm's accountants, and on and on and on.
You paid for that MILF secretary and that ridiculous top-shelf Holiday Party.
I have helped about a dozen of my clients get these gigs because they were capable and they asked for the favor. It helps to have a strategy that the firm's principals recognize and endorse.
