keystone trading group
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Unfortunately I am among the few people on these forums most qualified to provide info on Keystone Trading Group... I was with tham for approximately 6 months.
I don't have too many good things to say about them, however, my advice to anyone who wants to "trade" for them is to think of it as an "educational" experience - i.e., do NOT assume that you will be "hired" (don't think of it as a dream job with GoldmanSachs or JP Morgan). Don't even think that you will start making $2,000 per month from home (much less the $10,000 USD per month from home they casually throw out there during their 'mentoring' sessions).
They primarily get you to trade an intraday breakout system using moving averages on the daily, hourly, 15 minute, and 5 minute charts.
They used to have an active scalping program (i.e., using time and sales and level 2), however, they shut that program down around the time they changed their broker/dealer. They initially used Sterling Trader Pro, then moved to GrayBox by Hold Brothers, and most recently (from January 2010) went to Lightspeed after the Hold Brothers guys told them they were being cut off because Keystone traders are not Series 7 licensed.
Turnover is EXTREMELY high at Keystone. Pete (senior trader / co-founder of the firm) is VERY energetic, and can get you all hyped up, however, he loses his temper just as quick (and very often). All the restrictions he would put on everyone would cause much UNEEDED stress - I could feel it whilst just being a remote trader from home! For example, he would DEMAND you type in your trades and then WAIT FOR APPROVAL (by which time the stock would have already moved 25 cents). A simple system became very difficult to implement because of all this.
There was a, "you're being watched so you better not do anything dumb!" feeling all the time, and all this for a measly 300 shares (after three MONTHS of waiting!).
If you were to implement their strategy with your OWN money (i.e., no "boss" breathing down your neck, and making you doubt your every decision) you WOULD make money with their system over time. So their system IS GOOD and has... maybe a 40% to 50% accuracy at best - less than a coinflip, however, they make it VERY HARD to implement! If they wouldn't put so many restrictions on you then I'd say their system would improve to 55% accurate, and the reward to risk ratio would jump to 2 to 1 (net of commissions).
They start you with a maximum intraday loss of $50, with $200 per week - i.e., if you lose $50 Monday, $50, Tuesday, and $50 Wednesday, then they freeze your account on Thursday, but still expect you to log in and "provide input" and threaten to freeze your buying power permanently if you don't. You'd never see the traders in their New York office type anything into the chat room though... How is that fair? And then on Friday they would reinstate your account (except that Mario - one of their "mentors" - forgot to do that at least twice in my case).
I don't have too many good things to say about them, however, my advice to anyone who wants to "trade" for them is to think of it as an "educational" experience - i.e., do NOT assume that you will be "hired" (don't think of it as a dream job with GoldmanSachs or JP Morgan). Don't even think that you will start making $2,000 per month from home (much less the $10,000 USD per month from home they casually throw out there during their 'mentoring' sessions).
They primarily get you to trade an intraday breakout system using moving averages on the daily, hourly, 15 minute, and 5 minute charts.
They used to have an active scalping program (i.e., using time and sales and level 2), however, they shut that program down around the time they changed their broker/dealer. They initially used Sterling Trader Pro, then moved to GrayBox by Hold Brothers, and most recently (from January 2010) went to Lightspeed after the Hold Brothers guys told them they were being cut off because Keystone traders are not Series 7 licensed.
Turnover is EXTREMELY high at Keystone. Pete (senior trader / co-founder of the firm) is VERY energetic, and can get you all hyped up, however, he loses his temper just as quick (and very often). All the restrictions he would put on everyone would cause much UNEEDED stress - I could feel it whilst just being a remote trader from home! For example, he would DEMAND you type in your trades and then WAIT FOR APPROVAL (by which time the stock would have already moved 25 cents). A simple system became very difficult to implement because of all this.
There was a, "you're being watched so you better not do anything dumb!" feeling all the time, and all this for a measly 300 shares (after three MONTHS of waiting!).
If you were to implement their strategy with your OWN money (i.e., no "boss" breathing down your neck, and making you doubt your every decision) you WOULD make money with their system over time. So their system IS GOOD and has... maybe a 40% to 50% accuracy at best - less than a coinflip, however, they make it VERY HARD to implement! If they wouldn't put so many restrictions on you then I'd say their system would improve to 55% accurate, and the reward to risk ratio would jump to 2 to 1 (net of commissions).
They start you with a maximum intraday loss of $50, with $200 per week - i.e., if you lose $50 Monday, $50, Tuesday, and $50 Wednesday, then they freeze your account on Thursday, but still expect you to log in and "provide input" and threaten to freeze your buying power permanently if you don't. You'd never see the traders in their New York office type anything into the chat room though... How is that fair? And then on Friday they would reinstate your account (except that Mario - one of their "mentors" - forgot to do that at least twice in my case).
Once you "upgrade" to Keystone Platinum (by paying them an additional $1,800) they bump up your stop loss to $100 day, with $200 max per week. So you could lose money Monday and Tuesday and be locked out the rest of the week.
Back when I started their website said (in many places) that they START you off with $50,000 in trading capital, however, that is a COMPLETE LIE! They start everyone with $25,000.
Here is what an average day was like after the third month:
Starting buying power: $25,000
Max loss allowed per day: $100
Max loss allowed per week: $200
Max shares you are allowed to buy: 300
Example: If you went long 300 shares of Intel @ $20 = $6,000 (leaving you with $19,000 you cannot touch - the Lightspeed trading platform will lock you out from buying any more shares). Intel is a stock where making $0.20 cents per share is what you can expect on an average day. So with their restrictions you'd basically end up making $60 before commissions for the ENTIRE day if you had a good day that is. Now, call me a pipe dreamer if you want, but making a whopping 60 bucks on $25,000 for 7 hours of your time sounds like a pretty dumb idea to me. And then say you lose $50 tomorrow! How great would that be?
Which forces you to trade one of the higher priced stocks (you can only choose from a list they approve) IF it is on their "hot list" at that point. A ETF like the SPY @ $100/share, maybe. But Pete doesn't like it when you trade higher priced stocks *rolling my eyes*.
If you find a good trade at 9:30 AM right when the market (officially opens), then they tell you not to do anything till the first 15-minute range is broken out of (even if the market internals, sector, and broad markets are in your direction). By the time you buy the stock your risk/reward has gotten worse because you are entering late so you can't buy as many shares, otherwise you will probablly end up hitting your stop loss.
However, if you lose $100 then your account automatically start the next day off with $25,000 again. Your personal account "report card" (they use www.PropReports.com for daily changes in your profit/loss) reflects the -$100 loss (and commissions) the following day.
The BOTTOM LINE is that they put TOO MANY DAMN RESTRICTIONS on everyone. Which led me to believe (on many occasions) that they WANTED people who bought their program to FAIL to meet the profit targets and leave quickly, so they could be replaced with more suckers. Think about it... Say some hedge fund invested in lots of these prop trading firms (i.e., Keystone, Velez Capital, Affinity Trading, Epiphany Trading, MGB Trading, Title Trading, etc..) and gave Pete and Erik $2 million (or say it
Back when I started their website said (in many places) that they START you off with $50,000 in trading capital, however, that is a COMPLETE LIE! They start everyone with $25,000.
Here is what an average day was like after the third month:
Starting buying power: $25,000
Max loss allowed per day: $100
Max loss allowed per week: $200
Max shares you are allowed to buy: 300
Example: If you went long 300 shares of Intel @ $20 = $6,000 (leaving you with $19,000 you cannot touch - the Lightspeed trading platform will lock you out from buying any more shares). Intel is a stock where making $0.20 cents per share is what you can expect on an average day. So with their restrictions you'd basically end up making $60 before commissions for the ENTIRE day if you had a good day that is. Now, call me a pipe dreamer if you want, but making a whopping 60 bucks on $25,000 for 7 hours of your time sounds like a pretty dumb idea to me. And then say you lose $50 tomorrow! How great would that be?
Which forces you to trade one of the higher priced stocks (you can only choose from a list they approve) IF it is on their "hot list" at that point. A ETF like the SPY @ $100/share, maybe. But Pete doesn't like it when you trade higher priced stocks *rolling my eyes*.
If you find a good trade at 9:30 AM right when the market (officially opens), then they tell you not to do anything till the first 15-minute range is broken out of (even if the market internals, sector, and broad markets are in your direction). By the time you buy the stock your risk/reward has gotten worse because you are entering late so you can't buy as many shares, otherwise you will probablly end up hitting your stop loss.
However, if you lose $100 then your account automatically start the next day off with $25,000 again. Your personal account "report card" (they use www.PropReports.com for daily changes in your profit/loss) reflects the -$100 loss (and commissions) the following day.
The BOTTOM LINE is that they put TOO MANY DAMN RESTRICTIONS on everyone. Which led me to believe (on many occasions) that they WANTED people who bought their program to FAIL to meet the profit targets and leave quickly, so they could be replaced with more suckers. Think about it... Say some hedge fund invested in lots of these prop trading firms (i.e., Keystone, Velez Capital, Affinity Trading, Epiphany Trading, MGB Trading, Title Trading, etc..) and gave Pete and Erik $2 million (or say it
was Pete and Erik's own money... that part is irrelevant) then they have to get a return on that money. And let's also say that part of the deal is that any traders these prop firms sign up must provide liquidity to the ECNs, NYSE, and NASDAQ... that basically means that they need a bunch of unpaid clickers to sit in front of the computer for 7 hours per day. So if these firms give 60 people $25,000 each, that is $1,500,000 that they don't have access too. They can trade the remaining $500,000 themselves so their monitors will look impressive to the traders in the NYC office, or put some of it away into a money market, or something. And since these are new traders (placed under heavy restrictions) Pete and Erik don't expect to share in any profits with them (that's why the can allow for an 80% payout structure). So each person has to pony up $2,500 to $5,000 for the Keystone Platinum contract, and that gives Pete and Erik a safe 10% to 20% return every 3 to 4 months on that $1,500,000. After which they have 60 more suckers lined up. That's why they will make it impossible for you to succeed, because it would mean they would have to raise your stop loss and trading size WHILE you will be taking on more risk! Why would they take such risks when they can just get 60+ new people locked into a 4 month contract every quarter?
Anyway, aside from their shady dealing the LOGIC behind their trading strategy IS GOOD, however, you will NOT be able to implement it properly because of all the restrictions they place on you.
If you are an inexperienced trader looking for a GOOD SYSTEM to trade, then I WOULD recommend you only buy their TRAINING program (at the time it was called Equity Trader 101, but they have since updated it and locked me out of my Adobe account which had all the stuff I paid thousands of dollars for - THAT WAS A RIP OFF FOR SURE! At least let me download the material or something you losers!)
If you have $25,000 to $50,000 of your OWN money and very low to no monthly expenses (i.e., do NOT borrow from your credit cards) THEN you COULD become a profitable trader over time if you use their trading system and re-invest all profits, but do NOT get your hopes up and think that Keystone will hire you and give you a $300,000 account to trade. They start you at $25,000, and you stay there till your contract ends pretty much.
There was ONE guy who hit his profit target and WAS hired (maybe there were others, however, no one else ever typed any hints about that in the "mentor" chat room), but even he was required to meet monthly targets in subsequent months upon being "hired". My guess is that he either quit shortly after when he realized that he can make more money on his own money instead.
Again, I feel their trader program career "opportunity" is a RIP OFF, however, their course seems LEGIT (particularly for someone who gambles in the markets more often than not). If you know about moving averages, volume, trend analysis, candlesticks, breakouts, etc... (LOTS of FREE info on Google and YouTube about this stuff) then I'd have to say that even their course is useless.
Anyway, aside from their shady dealing the LOGIC behind their trading strategy IS GOOD, however, you will NOT be able to implement it properly because of all the restrictions they place on you.
If you are an inexperienced trader looking for a GOOD SYSTEM to trade, then I WOULD recommend you only buy their TRAINING program (at the time it was called Equity Trader 101, but they have since updated it and locked me out of my Adobe account which had all the stuff I paid thousands of dollars for - THAT WAS A RIP OFF FOR SURE! At least let me download the material or something you losers!)
If you have $25,000 to $50,000 of your OWN money and very low to no monthly expenses (i.e., do NOT borrow from your credit cards) THEN you COULD become a profitable trader over time if you use their trading system and re-invest all profits, but do NOT get your hopes up and think that Keystone will hire you and give you a $300,000 account to trade. They start you at $25,000, and you stay there till your contract ends pretty much.
There was ONE guy who hit his profit target and WAS hired (maybe there were others, however, no one else ever typed any hints about that in the "mentor" chat room), but even he was required to meet monthly targets in subsequent months upon being "hired". My guess is that he either quit shortly after when he realized that he can make more money on his own money instead.
Again, I feel their trader program career "opportunity" is a RIP OFF, however, their course seems LEGIT (particularly for someone who gambles in the markets more often than not). If you know about moving averages, volume, trend analysis, candlesticks, breakouts, etc... (LOTS of FREE info on Google and YouTube about this stuff) then I'd have to say that even their course is useless.
I paid $3,000 for the Keystone 20 workshop (it included the Equity Trader 101 course plus 1 month of "training" / watching the chat room, and 1 month of live trading an account. If it were not for the "discount" that I was offered in one of their funny promo emails they were going to charge me $3,500. Two months later I paid an additional $1,500 to "upgrade" from the Keystone one-month workshop to their Keystone Platinum program. The course seperately was $1,500 and they're now selling it for $895. Here is a preview link to the course:
https://admin.na6.acrobat.com/_a743334350/et101preview/
After having wasted $4,500, 6 months of time, and having recieved several white hair in the process, I would NOT recommend big aspirations with this company, but WOULD recommend the course. It's a good value at $895 for someone who is a complete novice to trading, and doesn't know where to begin. If you have knowlege of the business then forget the course, and just brush up your skills through torrents and youtube on the net. However, do NOT get your hopes up about anything else with this firm.
By the way, if you DO buy their course, make sure you TELL THEM to NOT block your account after a few months (as they did with me) or to email you hard copy DVDs!
Lastly, they require you to pay a monthly software fee of $180 (what a flipping joke!) and will bill your credit card if you don't give them a well in advance notice. And they do NOT teach you or allow you to trade options or futures.
https://admin.na6.acrobat.com/_a743334350/et101preview/
After having wasted $4,500, 6 months of time, and having recieved several white hair in the process, I would NOT recommend big aspirations with this company, but WOULD recommend the course. It's a good value at $895 for someone who is a complete novice to trading, and doesn't know where to begin. If you have knowlege of the business then forget the course, and just brush up your skills through torrents and youtube on the net. However, do NOT get your hopes up about anything else with this firm.
By the way, if you DO buy their course, make sure you TELL THEM to NOT block your account after a few months (as they did with me) or to email you hard copy DVDs!
Lastly, they require you to pay a monthly software fee of $180 (what a flipping joke!) and will bill your credit card if you don't give them a well in advance notice. And they do NOT teach you or allow you to trade options or futures.
Traded with keystone in April 2008 for a month. All I can say is that it was one of the best trading experiences I've ever had. Everything they taught me I used and came to light. I thought technical analysis was bullshit until i got there. Day trading is not for everyone but I will say this if you listen closely to their instructions, and remain discipline you will make money. Yes they let you trade only 100 shares but they want you to learn the process. I ended negative -30 for the month but i one point i was up close to 150, and that's because I didn't MANAGE THE RISK the way they told me to at one point. I let my gains get to my head. I must say that if you want to learn how to day trade and want screen time keystone is a great place to start.
Correction I traded with them in April 2009.
As has already been stated multiple times on this thread, a trader cannot survive trading for Keystone. Keystone could not survive from the P&Ls of its traders. Instead, their business model depends primarily on their workshop and subscription fees while maintaining tight risk management controls on their traders. They canât afford to lose the fees theyâve collected from their newbie traders or theyâre out of business ⦠simple as that.
I traded for 4 months last year at Keystone and lost money every month. This year Iâm averaging $14,000 mo. trading my own capital. Considering I struggled to just break even Jan./Feb., Iâm happy to say Iâm not only paying my bills but paying down my mortgage. Itâs been an incredibly challenging journey, but Iâve never stopped refining the fundamentals I learned at Keystone. Keystone is not about the âmoneyâ. Itâs about the âexperienceâ.
- Learning a basic trading plan.
- Understanding the discipline it takes to trade the plan.
- Committing to improving your knowledge, skills and mental toughness weekdays, weeknights and weekends.
You can learn everything Keystone teaches on the Internet. But how much will it cost you when first begin trading in an ocean of money hungry street sharks? Although the tight stops are frustrating, in reality, they are saving newbie traders from a whole lot of pain they might otherwise experience on their own. Once you leave Keystone, you take the trading plan and disciplines youâve learned and begin to evolve and understand what kind of trader you are. Keystone provides a great environment for newbie traders to get their wings. But understand that itâs only a matter of time before youâll be asked to âfly the coupâ.
I traded for 4 months last year at Keystone and lost money every month. This year Iâm averaging $14,000 mo. trading my own capital. Considering I struggled to just break even Jan./Feb., Iâm happy to say Iâm not only paying my bills but paying down my mortgage. Itâs been an incredibly challenging journey, but Iâve never stopped refining the fundamentals I learned at Keystone. Keystone is not about the âmoneyâ. Itâs about the âexperienceâ.
- Learning a basic trading plan.
- Understanding the discipline it takes to trade the plan.
- Committing to improving your knowledge, skills and mental toughness weekdays, weeknights and weekends.
You can learn everything Keystone teaches on the Internet. But how much will it cost you when first begin trading in an ocean of money hungry street sharks? Although the tight stops are frustrating, in reality, they are saving newbie traders from a whole lot of pain they might otherwise experience on their own. Once you leave Keystone, you take the trading plan and disciplines youâve learned and begin to evolve and understand what kind of trader you are. Keystone provides a great environment for newbie traders to get their wings. But understand that itâs only a matter of time before youâll be asked to âfly the coupâ.
Trading is 5.5k USD $5500 when I called them a year ago. I stayed away form any company that charge thousands in "training".
Firms that charge huge training fees usually do not care if their traders succeed, they have so many rules to prevent them from making money that the new trader leaves, making room for new students who can pay thier hefty fees.