Grinding it out, day after day

Quote from loogling:

lescor,

First, house and cars = reward well deserved. Congratulation!

Two quick questions (a little off topic): 1) Does Echotrade take a percentage of your profits? (I thought I saw you mentioning somewhere about trading with Echo.) I am thinking about switching from retail to a Canadian prop firm. 2) What's the best way, in your opinion, to minimize taxes? Did you incorporate or simply choose to pay income tax rate from a more favourable province like Alberta? (If you find some question too personal, feel free to skip them.)

Good luck to you in 2012.
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Echo doesn't take a cut of your profits.

Regarding your tax question, I would speak to a competent accountant who knows your situation. Trading for a living isn't a common occupation so there might be a few angles the typical accountant isn't familiar with. That's why I went to one of the big name firms.
 
lescor,

Sorry to bother you with a few more questions. I was hoping that an opinion from an experienced trader would lead me in the right direction.

1) Would your main reasons for going prop be "automation" and "routing"? Aside from these, what are the advantages for going prop, if any, excluding leverage? (Or what are the significant disadvantages of staying retail?)

I know many people list commission as a big difference, but I find that retail commission, on a flat rate, is still pretty cheap.

In terms of routing, you likely have a lot more venues to choose from, but are they considerably faster than the limited routes offered by retail? I have the impression that the HFT guys are competing in the routes used by prop firms (BATS, ARCA, EDGA, EDGX, etc.) so extensively that it's difficult to get filled with those routes unless the market goes against the trader. Retail orders, on the other hand, are mixed in with the internalized order flow, a flow which HFT firms don't always have access to. Would a retail order then prevent me from being front run by HFT, or is that just a naive belief? And what's your most favourite route? (No need to answer this one if it's strategy sensitive.)

2) You obviously don't expect to lose, but loses are a part of the business nevertheless. Swinging a big line like you do, what's the dollar amount of daily lose that is at the edge of your comfort level?

3) What would you say is the key to your breakthrough of consistent success? Is there a specific moment that significantly changed your trading? Did it take you a long time to reach that point?

Thanks again.
 
Quote from kcgoogler:

Lescor, is this still based on roughtly 100k of your capital. What would you say your average capital usage was? (i believe you were using about 1.2mil last year; still the same).


thanks!
-gariki
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Given he has 50k days at An average of 10 cents gross, He must be exposing at least 3-5 million a day in the market.
 
Lescor, just curious. Do you have a retirement account set up and how do you manage the money inside of that? Bonds stock mutual funds options? I assume you do not trade it the same way.
 
Quote from yobo:

Lescor, just curious. Do you have a retirement account set up
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I too am curious, whether you have a back up plan, lescor? Earlier you mentioned that it felt like somebody turned a switch half a year ago. What are you going to do if somebody else pulls another switch so that profits become completely negligible? Do you admit there is such probability? Thanks.
 
Quote from loogling:

lescor,

Sorry to bother you with a few more questions. I was hoping that an opinion from an experienced trader would lead me in the right direction.

1) Would your main reasons for going prop be "automation" and "routing"? Aside from these, what are the advantages for going prop, if any, excluding leverage? (Or what are the significant disadvantages of staying retail?)

I know many people list commission as a big difference, but I find that retail commission, on a flat rate, is still pretty cheap.

In terms of routing, you likely have a lot more venues to choose from, but are they considerably faster than the limited routes offered by retail? I have the impression that the HFT guys are competing in the routes used by prop firms (BATS, ARCA, EDGA, EDGX, etc.) so extensively that it's difficult to get filled with those routes unless the market goes against the trader. Retail orders, on the other hand, are mixed in with the internalized order flow, a flow which HFT firms don't always have access to. Would a retail order then prevent me from being front run by HFT, or is that just a naive belief? And what's your most favourite route? (No need to answer this one if it's strategy sensitive.)

Leverage is the main reason for going prop. Some strategies might rely on certain routes that aren't available retail, but nothing I do.

2) You obviously don't expect to lose, but loses are a part of the business nevertheless. Swinging a big line like you do, what's the dollar amount of daily lose that is at the edge of your comfort level?

It depends on the market and how good trading is going. Right now things aren't great and profits are smaller, so losing a few thousand bucks is enough to put me in a bad mood. In the fall of '08 anything +- $10k was noise and didn't even raise an eyebrow.

3) What would you say is the key to your breakthrough of consistent success? Is there a specific moment that significantly changed your trading? Did it take you a long time to reach that point?

This has been covered a couple times in the thread already.
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Quote from boba15:

I too am curious, whether you have a back up plan, lescor? Earlier you mentioned that it felt like somebody turned a switch half a year ago. What are you going to do if somebody else pulls another switch so that profits become completely negligible? Do you admit there is such probability? Thanks.
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I have a retirement savings account set up. I will trade in it now and then, and try to hold some long term investments in it, but it's hard to escape the trader's mindset and hold stuff for a long time.

Profits from how I trade could definitely evaporate completely. But there is always someone making a lot of money trading. If there wasn't, we wouldn't have markets. If I can't make money, it's because I failed to adapt.
 
Since everybody is asking all kinds of questions, let me try my luck. Of all the traders that you know well enough to see that they are making in this business, how many are in the educational part of this scheme? I am not asking this question becuase I am interested in mentoring. Just want to know if the old saying if you can't trade you teach hold any value. Since you do carry a bright light in thses dark cells of ET, it would be nice to hear your opinion, take on the matter.


Saxon22
 
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