Quote from t-time:
Thunderdog, Surdo, Cutiger75:
All your comments are appreciated...I will be very careful to scrutinize everybody and everything. Also, please do not get hung up on the 10K number. It is hard to put a "number" on something when it is not an exact science - if I need to "invest" more for the right person, then I will address.
Thanks and Good Luck,
t-time
Read this and then print it out because you need to ensure that this mentor/student relationship you seek is suitable for you and I hope the potential mentor your looking for in PA will also read it...
It's a two way street and it explains why:
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32793&perpage=1&pagenumber=7
The only difference is that this mentor will be trading with your money...
A trading account he/her has access to but unable to make any withdrawals/transfer nor address changes without your permission.
Trading accounts as such can be setup with brokers.
As for the amount of money...
That's the tricky part...the profit sharing whatever the percentage is...
Will need to exceed his/her current
annual profit level or else he/she risk being in a losing money venture with you.
Example...lets say you find someone in PA making 90k per year for the past few years...
That profit sharing percentage will need to exceed 90k or he/she is a
fool trading your money and making less.
I'm sure you've already figure out the trading account will need to be
very large in comparison to the annual profit level of the trader your going to be essentially a venture capitalist with.
Start thinking in terms that your venture capital will need to be 10x his/her annual profit level...
Anything less should be unsuitable for the trader because to properly trade your account...he/she will need to stop trading their own account.
Whatever you do...don't merge your funds.
Now...there's been echoes already here in this thread and in the many other past threads like this...
Why would a profitable trader want to trade someone else money and not his/her own money ???
Here's why...there are some profitable traders still early in their careers...
Maybe they have debts and they aren't able to grow their own trading account as fast because their profits are being used to pay off those debts.
Maybe they've been consistently profitable trading 1-3 contracts and are preparing to 2x-10x the contract size but have run into a lot of fear about such...they may see you as a way to do such without risking their own money.
My point...there's different reasons out their and you better make sure either a lawyer is involved or you work/learn from this trader
prior to him/her going near your venture capital...
To prevent being
scammed.
Once again...the only way your going to get someone interested in your offer is if the
percentage of the profit sharing greatly exceeds their current annual profit level.
Last of all, stay away from profitable
paper traders or traders with a profitable method that's been
backtested but never traded with real money...
You want someone that's a profitable trader with
real money...where there was a
real risk involved.
You may want to do a background check (private investigator) on this trader especially if your talking about a very very large trading account.
I didn't say a credit reference check...
I said a background check to uncover any past illegal activities.
------------------
*** Prior to doing a background check...
You can get things started on your own if its an ET member that contacts you.
Review that ET member posting habits...read
every single one of his/her past messages here at ET...
If they discussed trades taken here at ET or were posting trades here at ET...
These are trades they
must show proof to you that such were taken with real money.
Simply, this is a character check and their ET posting history is an early indication to you about their character.
Further, while reading all their past posts here at ET or anywhere else...
You want to see if the trader was rude, disrespectful, unprofessional, poor communication skills, poor trade managment skills if they posted trades
et cetera...
Your looking for anything that would merit not proceeding further with this trader (not going beyond a phone conversation).
Therefore, you can do a lot of elimination via this process alone.
(this eliminate ET guys like the skalpz or FXsKaLpEr characters)
------------------
After all the above...wish you luck because the odds are high you either aren't going to find someone in PA that meets your criteria or those that contact you will either try to scam you or don't meet the qualifications or try to convince you the criteria is too rigid.
Last of all, anyone interested in getting involved with you...
They shouldn't do it unless this type of relationship
begins with you trading in front of them prior to any mentoring and prior to them trading your account.
Simply, he/she needs to determine if your suitable for learning and will help keep some things in perspective when they begin trading your account...
As described in that link above...
It's a two-way street.
Get a lawyer involved, talk to your tax accountant, have paper work drawn up and signed...
Keep it simple, professional and clean.
Mark
(a.k.a.
NihabaAshi) Japanese Candlestick term