Letting a profitable futures day-trader trade my account: feasable?

I was asked to explain more about the friend who lost 50% in one day. I known for him a while and we would talk almost everyday. He gave me his support resistance and trading plan every morning for the spoos. I was a stock trader and found his calls to be very strong. He said he had been a floor trader for years in chicago. And he had friends in chicago who told him what was likely to happen.

So he kept telling me to drop the stocks and trade the spoos. Back then there were no minis and I could not handle multiple 500 dollar large contracts mentally. So he said he would trade them for me. I gave him power of attorney to trade the account and I told him to trade small. He trade 6 spoos three times losing on two trades and lost of $10,000.00 the first day. Since that was 50% of that account I shut off his access.

Also I did take half of the money out of the account when richard dennis was up 100% so I did make a small amount in that situation because richard shut it down after he lost about 50% from the highs.

Finally, rereading my message let me make it clear that the equity graphs and sharpe ratios should be measured against real live trading accounts not the back tested horse crap that we have all seen too many times.
 
The only way to assess skill is watching real time trades and paying close attention to risk control (losses under no circumstance should exceed some threshold this is critical for leveraged instruments like the SP). Calling the market is not enough, it's much more complicated than that, you have to look for a good entry point, fix a stop loss and then choose a profit target. You could easily be shaken out of your position with a big loss even if you got the overall direction right.

Everything else can be faked: backtest results, even actual trading records.

See also if performance is consistent. spoos are not for trend trading, except once every 2 or three weeks. trend traders would be better off trading currencies or bonds. But the daytrading profit potential is greater in index futures than in almost any other market.

I would stay away also if I see too many 1-2 ES points profits. Good scalpers make a nice living but usually don't grow big and they're not that good managing OPM.

You can almost guess most traders strategies by correlating the trader's P/L with the price action during the day. Skilled traders are less sensitive to whatever the market does. You call "alpha" the performance that is not correlated to market's behavior, it comes from trader's skill.

Finally for God's sake stay away from anybody claiming he has "inside info" or "friends" or things like that. If it's not a scam it might get you into legal problems.
 
yup, ask yourself if you were a profitable futures day-trader, would it be feasable for YOU to manage someone's $7.5k account? and forget about hedge funds if you only have 7.5k.
 
Thanks to all of you, for your very valuable pieces of advice.
Expecially to Jem, Buzzy2, Pabst, Traderkey, Trade99

Ok, I realize I may be asking too much, by looking for a profitable futures daytrader to trade for me (and share profits but not losses)

What about this: is there anyone one, who might be caring to be a mentor to me? Trader Assistant?
Say 1-2 hours, per week, using mIRC or Yahoo Messenger or MS Messenger, Paltalk, whatever...?

I mean, someone who would, by paying him a fee, follow with me (one-to-one) ES charting between 9:30 -10:30 and suggest me when to enter a trade, what to follow,...when to exit.

Some simple tips, a couple of hours per week, ...
He might teach me what to look for, which indicators, which charts, which time frame,...what is useful and what is unecessary.

I run eSignal Futures,
I use IB-TWS (I enter trades with hotkeys).

I have traded emini ES NQ,YM, Eurex, without any success. I wish to daytrade only, not position trading.

I am not against scalping, though I think it is obviously not for me.

There are different ways I can reward a good-soul-trader, if I become profitable, not only by paying fees or sharing profits.

I own a small estate property in Italy, another one in Beijing, China & in Thailand, and I can host for a free holiday, just for example, if the trader wishes to come here and teach me daytrading by using my PC and my setup.

In any locations I have fast ADSL or T1 connections, Fast Multimonitor PCs, so hardware setup is not a handicap.

Thanks for any suggestions
 
Dear Jem

After that scary experience, did you stop letting others trade your money or did you find an alternative, less risky solution?

Thanks
 
Here's another company that offers managed futures accounts. I'm sure their commissions are far less than 50% of your profits. You can definitely find what you're looking for, and you can find it offered by reputable established companies without the risk issues of trusting your account to a sole individual who has no particular guarantees of accountability if things go badly or if he turns out to be untrustworthy.

www.Lind-Waldock.com division of Refco.

Managed Accounts is a different kind of futures trading. You give power of attorney to trade your account to a CTA (Commodity Trading Advisor) who will manage your funds and those of other customers. When you want to allocate some of your investment funds to futures and prefer the benefits of having them managed by a commodity trading professional, a managed account may work for you.
 
Capital Berkeley, LLC provides automated trading systems for the SP and SP emini through monthly lease agreements. Even though using a broad range of systems has produced better results over time, an investor/trader can use as little as one system in their account.
 
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