Prop Firm Proposal

I need access to more capital today. I sold out one of my positions for a nice gain , but Robinhood has a 3 day settlement. I have already seen a few more good trades go by because I need to wait for my cash to be available. Geez.

I can't wait for them to have margin and shorting available. If not then I'll be forced to split some money from this account to IB.

This could be a fluke month. I will be patient to see if I can replicate this month's performance or greater month to month for at least another year to prove myself.

But on days and months when you are fire, unlimited capital seems like a nice idea. Hehe
 
trader99 said:
I need access to more capital today. I sold out one of my positions for a nice gain , but Robinhood has a 3 day settlement. I have already seen a few more good trades go by because I need to wait for my cash to be available. Geez.

I can't wait for them to have margin and shorting available. If not then I'll be forced to split some money from this account to IB.

This could be a fluke month. I will be patient to see if I can replicate this month's performance or greater month to month for at least another year to prove myself.

But on days and months when you are fire, unlimited capital seems like a nice idea. Hehe
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Ever think about just taking out a loan? You have equity in your home right?
 
Maverick74 said:
Ever think about just taking out a loan? You have equity in your home right?
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I've thought about it. Doesn't sound Very responsible. Surprising to hear it come from you. Before I tap my home equity, which is big chunk of my total investments, I would need to exhaust the backup savings. And I'm not touching that either.

Wouldn't it be less risky to just put $5k down in a retail prop account and get $100k intraday buying power?

Relatively low risk and diversify
my swing strategy with day reading for small risk.
 
trader99 said:
I've thought about it. Doesn't sound Very responsible. Surprising to hear it come from you. Before I tap my home equity, which is big chunk of my total investments, I would need to exhaust the backup savings. And I'm not touching that either.

Wouldn't it be less risky to just put $5k down in a retail prop account and get $100k intraday buying power?

Relatively low risk and diversify
my swing strategy with day reading for small risk.
More...

No. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. The is the SAME. You have first loss at a prop firm. So whether you lose 5k at Acme Trading or 5k from home equity it's the exact same thing. You follow what I'm saying right? We are not talking about someone else backing you vs you backing yourself. In both situations you are backing yourself with your own capital and you take all the risk. The difference is, by borrowing the money you have all the control and can do what you want. With a prop firm, you join an LLC, could potentially lose it from the firm blowing up, plus have whatever restrictions they put on you i.e stocks only, intra-day only, can't short this or that, etc. Think about what I'm saying.
 
Maverick74 said:
No. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. The is the SAME. You have first loss at a prop firm. So whether you lose 5k at Acme Trading or 5k from home equity it's the exact same thing. You follow what I'm saying right? We are not talking about someone else backing you vs you backing yourself. In both situations you are backing yourself with your own capital and you take all the risk. The difference is, by borrowing the money you have all the control and can do what you want. With a prop firm, you join an LLC, could potentially lose it from the firm blowing up, plus have whatever restrictions they put on you i.e stocks only, intra-day only, can't short this or that, etc. Think about what I'm saying.
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OK. I get what you are saying. The first $5K is my loss. But right now on Robinhood, which is non-margin account, if I want to trade $100K, I have to put down $100K. Which at the rate I'm going I might hit it sooner than later. But at a retail prop, I put down $5K and trade with $100K. More efficient use of capital especially if it's for the intraday strategies.

If prop trading is so horrible(I know all about that back from 2001-2003), then perhaps I should work my account to $125K on Robinhood(comm FREE) through swing trading. (Note: My home equity, savings acct, and bonds, retirement savings, etc. are untouched in this scenario since I'm playing supersafe. This is a "play account" that has grown.)

Then move it to IB to get 4x intraday that's $500K intraday and 2x overnight that's $250K. That should be plenty right?

And forget about this whole prop model for now?

Long term, I want fully backed(hf with nearly unlimited capital*) but in your eyes it's the same.. LOL.

I can't wait for Robinhood to offer margin account, shorting, AND a web platform. Trading on a mobile is fine if you are swing trading, but would be a pain for intraday trading. ahha

* 12 years ago I had such a deal, but I sucked at short-term trading then. I got in because of my credentials. Now that my trading prowess has caught up with my academic credentials then perhaps.. But now not. I want to build up my track record for a few more years..
 
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Borrow 25k. Put it in IB. Get 100k in intra-day leverage. Tell your wife you have a 5k stop on the account. If you hit it, that's it. If things go well, you just need to pay the interest on 25k which will be a LOT less then splitting p&l with a prop.
 
Maverick74 said:
Borrow 25k. Put it in IB. Get 100k in intra-day leverage. Tell your wife you have a 5k stop on the account. If you hit it, that's it. If things go well, you just need to pay the interest on 25k which will be a LOT less then splitting p&l with a prop.
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OK. I already have significantly more than $25K in Robinhood. So, I should move some of that to IB rather than wait til my Robinhood gets to $125K then move it to IB?

$0 Comm is deceptive when you can't get RT quotes(I always use limit orders). haha.

If I can avoid it, then I rather not borrow money to trade(though rates are so cheap. My bank was advertising 2.25% for home equity loan. And I get 0% APR credit card offers all the time. But there's 3% transaction fee, which translates to effectively 3% interest rate)
 
Maverick,

Thank you for your clarifications.

Here's my plan starting tomorrow.

Intraday Trading:
============
I will test our my intraday strategy on IB paper trading acct. Mind you, my daytrading experience has been net negative though there were periods of positive returns. I need to prove myself on a paper account that I can daytrade and make $. This is not a certain fact. Once I'm consistently successful at it , then I'll move at least $25K-$30K from my Robinhood to my IB account. Until then I need to prove myself that I can consistently make money using intraday strategy.

Swing Trading:
============
Continue to swing trading through Robinhood since I have been experiencing great success with it.
 
hey guys,

Yesterday I plan to try out my intraday strategy in the morning but got up too late. This morning I got up earlier but 30mins after the open. And my scanner(with custom criteria) signals some really good moves. Missed a bunch. Got in a couple of positions. One long. One short. On the long, made 4 cents on some shares and sold the final bit with 17 cents. On the short made 4 cents. This was all on sim. I want to be consistent before I go live since historically intraday trading was net negative.

Being a swing trader(my natural niche a la Brett Steenbarger's book), it seems like a waste of time to daytrade for 4 cents and 17 cents moves. But I understand the benefits of diversification. And it will only be for an hour to 1.5hr in the morning. Fine. Let's see if I can make consistent money for a month or so before I go live. Interesting how one's perspective changes when you switch your niche. Back in my ole prop days, I would be happy with 17 cents move. haha.

To really prove to myself, I have to get up earlier and at the market open since my scanner seems to work at the opening well.

If all of this seems too much work then I probably stick with swing trading for many multiple points moves.

Let's see. I'll keep you guys posted.
 
Here's my update.

Robinhood, while great with zero comm and nice interface, is TOTALLY WORTHLESS for daytrading. It's like 18minutes after the open and it has yet to update the quotes from YESTERDAY! God forbid, some suckers are dumb enough to use market orders. I'm sure you can buy and sell with current prices if you use limit orders.

Now to my daytraders/intraday traders friends, I have a question. What's your platform and workflow for daytrading?

Here's my current setup and it's not working even though I'm able to identify good trades(or so I think. haha). I use TC200 and I use their out-of-the-box scanner to identify movers intraday. But here's the rub. By the time I click on the scanner window and see what's moving, I have to then go into my IB sim account(until I prove myself I can do this profitably) type in the symbol then enter the trade, the damn thing has moved already! wtf. haha.

So, how do you guys do it? What's your workflow and platform that would allow that? See something move and click or key comb that would buy me X shares automatically. I don't seem to be set up with the right tools. Or maybe IB can do that but I just don't know how.

I don't mind look at other daytrading platform(and pay the monthly fees) if it's fast and has that scanner to buy/sell integration with one button/click. Seems like to do daytrading need a lot of technology/tools.. correct me if I'm wrong

Any advices are greatly appreciated.

thanks
 
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