No capital contribution

the practice of churning is inherent at any type of brokerage - retail, prop, etc.

commission rates, payout splits, etc. should be fair across the board. Any type of firm that gauges on that should be foregone as generating commission $$ is probably their only interest BUT the training programs are much in-depth and more well-developed than the run of the mill broker.

I also think what a lot of traders don't take advantage of are free webinars. Almost every software provider provides these free of charge. Ultimately, it's the broader experience that people have that help attract people to different types of firms. I was never the biggest fan of T3 but they do put in a lot of effort in research for their traders. I don't necessarily think that type of thing should be overlooked.

As far as no capital contribution is concerned: you can't have your cake and eat it too. In most cases, you need to demonstrate that you did have a successful track record using your own capital before anyone will give you money to trade. Whether it's a trading account or education or your time, you pay one way or another. The main question one needs to ask is in their own situation, what offers the most value.
 
Quote from riskaddict:

I've read this entire thread but still didn't see anyone answer the NFL question without cheating. I don't even know how many players are on a team but my guess would be 15,000 with a 30%-50% confidence interval. I probably should have failed econometerics so I forget what a confidence interval is. I was turned off of stats when on the 1st day of our 2nd level stats course the teacher said everything we have learned or will learn is pretty much bullshit.

If you even got to a 3rd interview with Jane street you must be doing something right.
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They just want to see how you think and problem solve. Nobody knows that answer off the top of their head obviously. I'm really good with numbers, but I have anxiety issues with interviews. Messing up that question caused my to hesitate with the following questions, even though I'm positive I answered them right. It caused me to take too long and I kept double checking my answers. Currently I'm just tape reading, no advanced math needed. Though it's important to have a good numbers sense, memory, and most importantly pattern recognition.
 
Quote from kmgilroy89:

They just want to see how you think and problem solve. Nobody knows that answer off the top of their head obviously. I'm really good with numbers, but I have anxiety issues with interviews. Messing up that question caused my to hesitate with the following questions, even though I'm positive I answered them right. It caused me to take too long and I kept double checking my answers. Currently I'm just tape reading, no advanced math needed. Though it's important to have a good numbers sense, memory, and most importantly pattern recognition.
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Sometimes they look for someone to say "I have no clue". A lot of these questions can be tricky to see how honest you are about what you do and don't know. I've seen it work both ways.
 
Quote from EvOTraderV2:

Sometimes they look for someone to say "I have no clue". A lot of these questions can be tricky to see how honest you are about what you do and don't know. I've seen it work both ways.
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Most of those questions they are more interested to see how you think about solving the problem, and to see how you handle stress.

Anyone going through these types of interviews should read Heard On The Street, a majority of questions you might be asked comes from this book. My first interview the hardest part was acting like I hadn't heard these brain teasers before
 
Quote from Maverick74:

I agree with you. You can't "teach" trading any more then you can "teach" poker. You can show people how to use software but that is about as far as you can go. Unless you are teaching someone the mechanics of making markets which is highly mathematical and structured.

The real value I think of trading at one of these firms is simply being in an office environment. When I started at Worldco 13 years ago, being able to sit next to 7 figure traders and emulate their daily habits was priceless. There IS value in that. But in "teaching"? Teaching what? LOL.
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anything can be taught anything can be learned. there are some examples of guys who have taught traders they have recruited from all walks of life.

you can also teach poker as well. these comments are simply false, from those who believe you "have it or you don't " based on the smallest time samples of beginners in a difficult profession. most guys lose their first 5k or risk limit at their firm, are fired, and never start again. this is hardly evidence that you cannot teach traders. and just because firm education doesn't generate all profitable traders is also no evidence that you cannot teach traders.

ive been taught and ive watched traders progress and get taught. ive learned from on of the best, a market wizard who is still profitable, ive been taught and I have watched him teach, and I myself teach.



most people who trade simply don't want to trade, the ones who want to transform themselves from losers to winners. this has nothing to do with teaching anything. if you define teaching as having all of your students become successful traders, then perhaps you can't teach traders, yes. but this would be a ridiculous measure for the question.

they key thing in trading. or anything is you have to want to do it past the first few walls or pitfalls of short term failure. trading is about skill.

modeling...you sitting at worldco or wherever, is a huge part of learning. you say you can't teach trading but that's exactly what they firm did by sitting you next to a profitable trader.

the real problem with successful people generally is they do not generally realize the confluence of events, happenstance, luck that happened to give them the situational education that they have. but the fact is much of trading is easily modeled, learned. the one cornerstone is you hav eto find ways of staying in the game long enough to keep learning.
 
Quote from pairsarbtooo:

anything can be taught anything can be learned. there are some examples of guys who have taught traders they have recruited from all walks of life.

you can also teach poker as well. these comments are simply false, from those who believe you "have it or you don't " based on the smallest time samples of beginners in a difficult profession. most guys lose their first 5k or risk limit at their firm, are fired, and never start again. this is hardly evidence that you cannot teach traders. and just because firm education doesn't generate all profitable traders is also no evidence that you cannot teach traders.

ive been taught and ive watched traders progress and get taught. ive learned from on of the best, a market wizard who is still profitable, ive been taught and I have watched him teach, and I myself teach.



most people who trade simply don't want to trade, the ones who want to transform themselves from losers to winners. this has nothing to do with teaching anything. if you define teaching as having all of your students become successful traders, then perhaps you can't teach traders, yes. but this would be a ridiculous measure for the question.

they key thing in trading. or anything is you have to want to do it past the first few walls or pitfalls of short term failure. trading is about skill.

modeling...you sitting at worldco or wherever, is a huge part of learning. you say you can't teach trading but that's exactly what they firm did by sitting you next to a profitable trader.

the real problem with successful people generally is they do not generally realize the confluence of events, happenstance, luck that happened to give them the situational education that they have. but the fact is much of trading is easily modeled, learned. the one cornerstone is you hav eto find ways of staying in the game long enough to keep learning.
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No, you can't teach trading. I've been doing this for a long time. I've been on the floor, prop, retail, etc. What you CAN teach is an edge. When I was on the floor my market making firm "taught" me the proper way to make a market. I learned synthetics, put to call parity, etc. When I was at Worldco, I was "taught" an edge. The guys who work at Chicago prop firms who trade interest rates are "taught" an edge. Guys who trade structured products at Goldman are "taught" an edge. Outside of that, you can teach someone good habits. At worldco I had one of the best mentors on the street. What I learned from him was his daily habits. I could have used that towards a lot of things, it wasn't trading, it was about work ethic.

But sitting a guy down and "teaching" how to trade? Come on dude. No. I can't teach you how to play in the NFL, you're probably not big enough, fast enough or athletic enough. I can teach you how to work out. I can show you how to block and tackle. But the NFL? No dude. LOL. Trading is not some job. You are talking about getting people to perform at a level where most professional athletes have to perform at. In fact, there are more people making a living today as a professional athlete then their are as prop traders. That should tell you something.

Again, if I have a specific edge, let's say how to arbitrage cash and futures in the rate complex then yes, I can show you how to do that. But that is something entirely different.
 
What makes you think you would not benefit from learning? I do not know your analytical/analysis skills, but from the posts I read, I have not seen it demonstrated. The edge you talked about could be what you could see via your analysis that others do not see. For that you need creativity, and analysis tools, and examples shown to you so that you realize there are things you think you see but which you did not see before it was shown to you.

The part that is missing in the world of trading is capital.

By the nature of trading, capital and knowledge are never/rarely in the same hand.

The guy with capital is definitely sub par. It is a sure thing, because otherwise he would be on the F list.
 
Sorry Maverick, but I have to agree and disagree with you as well. While I fully agree that you can't teach someone to be in the NFL, you can teach them to be a better football player than before. Trading is going to take a natural, statistical path where only a very small amount of the people that get into the business are very successful (like NFL players) and the rest will be scattered through the statistical probabilities of failure, mild success, moderate success, etc.

A better analogy is golf. If I take lessons from a golf coach (which may not be a better golfer than me. Take Tiger Wood's golf coach for example) it doesn't mean that I will make it into the PGA. That will take natural ability (which most people don't have enough) and putting in tens of thousands of hours over a long period of years. But just because I don't make the PGA tour doesn't make the golf coach a scammer or golf lessons a waste of money.

I think the real problem with this question is the expectation of the individual trader. Like everyone else, I started in this business with delusions of grandeur and that I was going to be in the top .1% of traders. However, over the years I have realized I am not going to be that person and I am now focused on reasonable, consistent gains which has made me into a better trader.

Since you wanted to use a sports analogy, every professional athlete today went through a series of coaches, trainings, etc. to help get them where they were today. However, none of that MADE them successful. That just took extremely hard work and natural ability. Some people could only play high school, some had the ability for college ball and a select few made the pros. The process of training and learning was not a waste of time for the high school players who never got paid a dime for football. That doesn't diminish the path they took.

The reason for study, training and having someone else critique your trading is not to guarantee success but to have someone who thinks and acts differently challenge the beliefs that you "know" to be true. In the end, there is no "truth" and everything is just based on individual perception (sorry religion. haha). Sorry for the lengthy rant but I don't care for people who are closed minded and only see black and white. Rant over.

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein



Quote from Maverick74:

No, you can't teach trading. I've been doing this for a long time. I've been on the floor, prop, retail, etc. What you CAN teach is an edge. When I was on the floor my market making firm "taught" me the proper way to make a market. I learned synthetics, put to call parity, etc. When I was at Worldco, I was "taught" an edge. The guys who work at Chicago prop firms who trade interest rates are "taught" an edge. Guys who trade structured products at Goldman are "taught" an edge. Outside of that, you can teach someone good habits. At worldco I had one of the best mentors on the street. What I learned from him was his daily habits. I could have used that towards a lot of things, it wasn't trading, it was about work ethic.

But sitting a guy down and "teaching" how to trade? Come on dude. No. I can't teach you how to play in the NFL, you're probably not big enough, fast enough or athletic enough. I can teach you how to work out. I can show you how to block and tackle. But the NFL? No dude. LOL. Trading is not some job. You are talking about getting people to perform at a level where most professional athletes have to perform at. In fact, there are more people making a living today as a professional athlete then their are as prop traders. That should tell you something.

Again, if I have a specific edge, let's say how to arbitrage cash and futures in the rate complex then yes, I can show you how to do that. But that is something entirely different.
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Quote from wagthedog:

Sorry Maverick, but I have to agree and disagree with you as well. While I fully agree that you can't teach someone to be in the NFL, you can teach them to be a better football player than before. Trading is going to take a natural, statistical path where only a very small amount of the people that get into the business are very successful (like NFL players) and the rest will be scattered through the statistical probabilities of failure, mild success, moderate success, etc.

A better analogy is golf. If I take lessons from a golf coach (which may not be a better golfer than me. Take Tiger Wood's golf coach for example) it doesn't mean that I will make it into the PGA. That will take natural ability (which most people don't have enough) and putting in tens of thousands of hours over a long period of years. But just because I don't make the PGA tour doesn't make the golf coach a scammer or golf lessons a waste of money.

I think the real problem with this question is the expectation of the individual trader. Like everyone else, I started in this business with delusions of grandeur and that I was going to be in the top .1% of traders. However, over the years I have realized I am not going to be that person and I am now focused on reasonable, consistent gains which has made me into a better trader.

Since you wanted to use a sports analogy, every professional athlete today went through a series of coaches, trainings, etc. to help get them where they were today. However, none of that MADE them successful. That just took extremely hard work and natural ability. Some people could only play high school, some had the ability for college ball and a select few made the pros. The process of training and learning was not a waste of time for the high school players who never got paid a dime for football. That doesn't diminish the path they took.

The reason for study, training and having someone else critique your trading is not to guarantee success but to have someone who thinks and acts differently challenge the beliefs that you "know" to be true. In the end, there is no "truth" and everything is just based on individual perception (sorry religion. haha). Sorry for the lengthy rant but I don't care for people who are closed minded and only see black and white. Rant over.

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein
More...

I think we are disagreeing on semantics here. If your "definition" of trading is simply improving someone then shit, yeah OK. Hell, by that definition if I show someone how to place a stop order I've taught them to trade. When these questions get brought up on ET, they are usually in the mold of can you take a guy from nothing into a consistently profitable trader who derives 100% of his income from trading. I say no, not without an edge. Now can you "coach" a guy or "consult" or whatever BS vendor talk there is out there where we talk about our feelings and use hindsight analysis of what we would have done had we taken XYZ trader earlier, sure. If that is what you are referring to then fine, you can teach trading. I just don't think that is what people think of when they talk about "teaching". Hell just reading posts on ET can "improve" one's trading. If the metric is simply to "improve" irregardless of whether their marginal product of trading is positive or not, then you are right. BTW, we have plenty of "coaches" on ET. I guess we can ask them. LOL.
 
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