Lion's Group Trading

Don –

As always, I appreciate your helpful comments.

I completely agree with your conclusion that trading skills may not be mastered by osmosis, although I wish this were not the case. I do, however, think trading skills can be taught and learned in an ideal environment. I just hope to be able to begin to eek out a decent living in about six months doing something I enjoy.

I did not look into whether LGT is a sub LLC or not, but read the agreement which seemed to indicate that they are, but I am not positive. Although I appreciate your warning concerning this particular issue, it is a calculated risk I have chosen to accept because my alternatives are much less attractive from an overall perspective. I believe my risk is negligible due to the fact that I am putting up a paltry sum of capital. If I begin to become a profitable trader in the future, perhaps I will reexamine my concerns related to this issue.

I intend to diligently study all trading styles before my first day and focus my effort and attention on those you mentioned in your post. Do you have any book suggestions that go into specific detail about the particular styles you mentioned, especially MOC and M & A (Would you consider M&A synonymous with Risk Arb?). I have read a number of books, but none so far that go specifically into each style. I am, however, about to begin studying The Master Swing Trader by Alan Farley, which appears to be a comprehensive examination of the many trading styles.

DayTradeNYC –

Thanks for sharing your insights. I believe Perrault and his traders’ organization was a Generic branch but later broke away to form LGT.

Goldenarm-

Thank you for providing me with your own valuable personal trading experiences. Yes, LGT is definitely NOT a churn and burn organization. They will not just take any Joe off the street, which in my humble opinion, lends the organization credibility. I will certainly utilize your advice and ask as many questions as possible.

Anyone –

In preparation for my impending first day (June 3), I am attempting to determine a list of NYSE stocks to watch closely. Does anyone have any good suggestions based upon various styles, e.g. good scalping stocks, good potential momentum stocks, volatile stocks, etc.? I ultimately intend to develop my own unique style, but could use all the help I can get along the way.

I hope I haven’t violated any unspoken trading rules by asking these questions. Remember, I am a virgin, so please be kind.

Thank you all for your participation

Best of Luck.
 
The most important thing you can do, tradng wise, is your "opening only" strategy (about 1/3 - 1/2 of all the traders profits are made with this strategy). So be "religous" in doing these orders. I would suggest only 5-7 stocks, 500 shares, to begin with. Your normal trading should only be 200-300 shares, but since this strategy is so good, you can do more shares.

Pick high cap, S&P 500 stocks that trade within a sector. Find 3 to trade for the first couple of months (they don't have to be in your opening group of stocks, but should). You will learn how these stocks trade by reading the tape, following short sellers, looking for trade throughs, and reading the mOC's.

This should keep you busy for the first couple of months, very crucial that you do the above well, very well....as you will get discouraged trying to follow some "system" or somebody elses idea of what real trading is. Do not, do not, "scan" or "filter" for stocks for at least 6-12 months, since you will not know how these stocks trade, and it is much more important to know how a stock trades than to "find" it on some scanner.

I wish you the best of luck!!!
Let me know if I can be of assistance!!

Don
 
This is in response to Don's comments about his Bright Trading traders making most of their money on the opening programs during the first hour or so.

I believe that what Don is saying is true, that the first hour of trading can be really profitable. However, DO NOT FOCUS your attention only on the first hour of trading. The cream of the crop traders, many of them are at Lion's Group Trading, make money at ANY time during the day. The average mook trader only makes money during the first hour.

So johnnyloudcloud, don't just focus on the opening program trades during the first hour. Money can be easily made at any time of the day if you know what you are doing.
 
Ferrari360 -

I appreciate your advice concerning opening programs. For the most part, I intend to follow Don’s suggestions with respects to trading conservatively for my first few months, as I lack the skill and experience to deploy a more aggressive style. If, per chance, you are a trader at LGT, perhaps you can assist me in the formation of a trading style that enables one to consistently earn profits throughout the day. I need all the help I can get.
 
By all means, try to make money at all times..However, most daytraders will tell you that most money is made first hour and last hour. In between, you should read a book or watch someone trade. You will save yourself alot of money by staying away from trading middle of the day.

As for one of the styles at LGT, I can tell you that bottom picking is a style used by 2 of the principals - Steve Chung and Dave Perrault. This style takeas alot of capital and huge sets of steel balls....:) ... I can tell you Steve was long 60,000 shares of BRL one day when it was tanking....He made money on the trade. DOnt know how much. But he was in the hole for over $50G at one point. Dave Perrault...same story. I know this year, there was an occassion where he was down $100,000 before he ended UP $250,000 for the day. I forgot which stock it was.... one of those disater du jour. You can not emulate these styles unless you have plenty of capital.

Learn to trade the open....trade little...dont churn and burn..and do NOT give away your profits by being tempted to trade after 11am. Perrault will tell you that in order to be a millionaire trader, you have to make $0.0x cents per share of stocks you trade. This means only one thing: you have to be a very efficient trader. Be very selective. Do not churn (although that may be what your firm wants). Forget about trading size for whatever the reason...ego, show off..whatever......just make the money.
 
RE> I believe that what Don is saying is true, that the first hour of trading can be really profitable. However, DO NOT FOCUS your attention only on the first hour of trading.

I just got back from a week long training program for new traders at Bright Trading, to stand up a little for Don (until he get's back), your right he does focus on the opening order strategy for his new traders....<BUT> they drilled into us we must learn additional strategies/ trading techniques AND we must learn how to trade the whole day to be really successful, Don's older better looking brother was especially adiment on this point. In total agreement with your analysis, the great (read: financially successful) traders trade the whole day, not just the open.

DOn did suggest that we double our share size on our OO trades and downsize (our share size) the rest of the days trades until we become more proficient.....just wanted to clarify that Don and Bob would both be in total agreement with you.

Good trading all.....

mrktwiz
 
DayTraderNYC, as always, I sincerely appreciate your comments and suggestions. I will certainly implement your strategy by being selective and refraining from churning and burning.

I am leaving for a vacation now, so I will respond to any comments and/or inquiries directed at me upon my return next week. I look forward to reading any new posts.

Best of Luck to All
 
Which numbers do you suggest I look at? Each time I came into contact with Worldco, I received different numbers. The place does not exactly inspire confidence. Actually, the package (ticket charge, per share commission, payout, and capital requirement) offered by Lion’s Group Trading was more appealing. This does not even take into consideration the fact that LGT is filled with super star traders, whereas Worldco suffers from a dearth of them.

If things are so wonderful at Worldco, why did all these traders leave in the first place?

I am personally willing to give up a significant portion of my profits provided that what I consider tuition expenses bear fruit. As I have stated in earlier posts, I sincerely believe that if I can’t make it at LGT, I won’t make it anywhere. I cannot say the same for Worldco.
 
if what LGT said is totall same as what they will do for those traders they will hire, I think that LGT is a better place than Worldco. Worldco just show their traders number. So what? 700 traders, 500 fail, I can only say that this is not a good company. They made big money by hiring so many traders, but the traders cannot get what they want. So just let us see how LGT will perform in their next step.
 
My name is Keith Espinosa and I am a Senior Partner at LGT. Having read the above posts I have concluded a few things.

1) Don Bright has lost touch with reality of today's trading markets. Opening program and MOC's simply do not work as well as they used to. Traders who use these programs have been flat to up small in the last few months. All the recent money has been in picking retracements.

2) Thanks to Don for sponsoring this site. It is an invaluble service to the trading community. That being said though, I believe that he is just slandering LGT with comparisions to Enron????? Nothing could be further from the truth. Dave Perrault, Steven Chang, Serge Podialak, Joe Lucenti and I among others built this firm for Traders because we wanted to create the perfect environment for trading, nothing more.

Any real questions about the firm please feel free to contact me at kpe@lionsgrouptrading.com.


Thanks and good luck to JohnnyLoudcloud. Please contact me ( I am in the Miami office) before you start.
 
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