Question for people who have actually traded at prop firms

R

rt5909

Hello,

I have been lurking on this site for years, reading journals and soaking up whatever info I could, I have recently registered because I feel I am ready to start trading. I have a question regarding prop firms...but I would appreciate just receiving responses from people who have actually traded at these firms....I've read most of the other threads about Swift, Bright, echo, pick a firm, and I've seen how the rumor mills start, so please only respond if you have some valid advice and have actual experience. Also, feel free to PM me if you'd like, also, I know Don Bright and various people from other prop firms frequent this site....and if they would like to offer some advice or think I have a chance with their respective firm, feel free to PM me as well......now for some background on me and my situation.

I am 21 years old. I have no degree from college, however....for the last 2 years I have managed a large grain farming operation in Texas....no...not a farm laborer...a manager, completly in charge of decision making, risk management, and keeping and updating the company's business plan as situations changed.
I have been keeping track of the stock market since I was a freshman in high school and actually have a little money invested right now, although with my job I cannot actively trade it, so I use conservative options strategies right now. In reading on here I have learned that I will need a years worth of living expenses saved up so that I will not "have" to make money while I'm learning....so I've done this....I have 100K saved up to live on....which by my research should support me in NYC, Chicago or wherever until I get my feet under me. I absolutely love trading and would love to do it actively full time. I also only make about 40K per year now, so I would like to spend the time to get good at trading to improve my income as well. I am an extremely goal oriented and competitive person, so I feel I would be good at trading. Also, I am single and young, so this is the best time to try this. I cannot do this until fall as I am under contract until fall harvest, but want to do this as soon as harvest is over. I will also by this time have 25-50K to put up as deposit if it is required. My question is....given my situation, newbie with the means to get by until I have been adequately trained, which firm is best for me? Better yet, if you have actually traded with a firm, what where your experiences with each as a beginner? I apologize for the length of this but I really do appreciate any advice....thank you...if you have any more questions let me know....
 
learn how to scalp. can't really think of another way to build your account quickly with such little risk. you can definitely make 40k with next to nothing risk margin, i'm talking less then 2k risk deposit.

now could you make 40k taking positions or doing whatever hocus pocus analysis with wider risk parameters and lower size per trade? maybe, but i sure as hell haven't done it and i can't see it.

you should uh...just pike your way to glory, and then move on to other things once you're tired of grinding every day.

if you got 100k, go drop 5k somewhere, say you wanna scalp, have whatever shop churn the crap out of you on a .008 or .004 or something like that, do it for 6 months then once you've seen enough/had enough of making crap, get a better deal.

getting churned by a shop for 6 months and dropping 5k, its not crazy if you got 100k saved. Cheap price to pay. Most that do this, its totally retarded from the beginning because they can neer escape the shop/get their own deal because that 5k deposit is their entire world. you've got a crap load saved up so its all good for you. You just don't want to be one of those guys that gets on here and says, "it took me 7 years of blood sweat and tears to become profitable and using every indicator to learn that price action was all I needed and trading is so hard and everyone fails and blah blah blah"

i guarantee you not a single one of these people that took longer then 1 year to figure this out were scalping. Not a diss, i mean it makes sense, if you're gonna take 100 trades per week and i'm going to take 100 trades today, it makes sense if I figure this out in 1 year and it takes you 5 given the difference in frequency inherent to the style of trading.

dont be that guy.
 
scalping cannot be scaled past a certain point, and being able to look at larger time frames involves more than just holding for longer times. you need to look at more variables and take more things into consideration as your time frame increases. scalping is quicker to learn because it is repetitive and almost narrow-sighted in a way (not to knock it), but i am just trying to defend that those people who put in more than a year to learn how to trade did not waste their time and actually spent it learning an almost altogether different animal.
 
I completely agree. thats why its called a grind. i don't think anybody envisions making 300-500 a day with little to no drawdown as the end all be all in trading equities. but thats not a bad place to start. personally, just given the limitations i've seen to how much you can scale in equities, i'm assuming anybody making over 300k in equities isn't scalping, or if they are, they're using some kind of gimmick/arb. so the money isn't in grinding, thats just a fact in my book.

but when you're first starting out, like 6-12 months in you gotta start making cash.

i'm sure he'd grow out of grinding/picking up pennies in front of a bulldozer. but i'd rather learn to crawl before i walk/run.

I'd just hate to see a guy who has a real legitimate shot at making this work, simply because he has enough money, forgo the route that screws the majority of folks over, which is getting churned at a shop. When i left my old place, i barely survived the first month with only 1.5k risk deposit. From power going out, wrong damn account setting that almost blew me the $#@ out cause i couldn't hit out of a trade, to just bs all around, I had a whole new appreciation for all those fools running around saying that a good reason folks don't make it is because their account are too small.

I think i'm currently lucking out on that, just lucky to survive those random things that could of wiped me out in a min. This guy won't get trapped at a shop like most, because he's got cash saved up. And he won't have to take the leap of faith and survive random bs events like I did. He's got a real legitimate shot at making it work. Then after he learns to grind, he can teach himself whatever swing/position thing he wants, and risk what he grinds to make more. My old boss, who now takes ridiculous swings at the market intraday and overnight, he told me this is how he got to be the beast that he is now. he was a little piker to begin with. no shame in that.
 
and uh, don't put up more then 3k if you're not going to be paid out when you want (aka if the firm is going to try and make/get an interest free loan by not paying you out till a month later..i know its common who cares. nothing shady about it, just don't do it unless you're getting something in return)

also because if you put in something retarded like 50k because the firm is safe and all that, that might be true. but you, just starting out, will probably not be safe with your capital if you go on tilt. I didn't really have that option because really, every trade i put on scalping wasn't "safe" (, 1.5 risk deposit putting on min 1000 shares on a scalp that has a few pennies risk...well what happens when my isp goes out...wow, yeah, not safe)

but if i did it all over again with 50k in the account. wow, i mean i think i had good discipline starting out, but who the hell knows what I would of done with that much dough to blow.
 
How exactly does a 21 year old making 40k/year have about 150k in cash saved up? Questionable whether this thread is even real, but I will bite anyway. My first advice is don't trade, not now, not ever because you will most likely lose everything. If you feel you must then attempt it intelligently, not like the vast majority of posers on this site.

I have no interest in where you go or if you trade at all, so I can give you my unbiased advice. Bright and Echo are both good firms, don't let anyone sell you on a sub llc. Since you know next to nothing you will need training. Call the firms you are interested in and have a lengthy talk about all your questions. Once you have narrowed down your search, you have enough money so you can fly out and spend a day with them and see where you would work and with whom. Training with, and trading with a successful trader is hard to find, but very valuable.

There are a large number of styles for trading. I would suggest taking at least a little bit of time to paper trade listed and nasdaq stocks, as well as futures and forex by scalping, daytrading, and swing trading just to see all the differences there are. Most prop firms are just stock so figure out if that is really the way you want to go.

Don't burn any bridges where you are now since you will most likely fail and need something to fall back to. I have seen more than a few hundred try and fail, so go into it with realistic expectations. Save as much money as you can wherever you can, i.e. live cheaply. Start with as little money down as possible and trade the fewest shares/contracts possible. You will lose money, so by trading as small as possible you can lose an irrelevant amount of money while learning.

Do you get emotional or attached to trades? Can you take a loss without it negatively affecting you or your trading? The market can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, for any reason it wants - you are irrelevant and can only control yourself. Most fail by not controlling themselves while thinking that their opinions matter. Without the right mental attitude you will fail. Trading is a job just like any other.
 
LOL the OP will feel so stupid one day when and if he figures out that trading is simple and that the first and biggest mistake he ever did was

to approach it thinking that its complicated

I am LOLing now but he will be LOLing later :D
 
Quote from C- kid:

LOL the OP will feel so stupid one day when and if he figures out that trading is simple and that the first and biggest mistake he ever did was

to approach it thinking that its complicated

I am LOLing now but he will be LOLing later :D
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lol it's so simple yet you can't do it so you have to go make this whole internet abuse-seeking facade to try to convince yourself you're something more than a douchebag who blew his account one too many times. LOL.
 
Quote from NY0BScalper:

lol it's so simple yet you can't do it so you have to go make this whole internet abuse-seeking facade to try to convince yourself you're something more than a douchebag who blew his account one too many times. LOL.
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how do you know if I can or can not trade

who blew what, u aren't making sense :confused:
 
Quote from opt789:

How exactly does a 21 year old making 40k/year have about 150k in cash saved up? Questionable whether this thread is even real, but I will bite anyway. My first advice is don't trade, not now, not ever because you will most likely lose everything. If you feel you must then attempt it intelligently, not like the vast majority of posers on this site.

Good question....I have 100K saved currently, and will have another 25-50 by fall. The reason is that although I just make 40K as a farm manager, for 1 it only takes me 18K / yr to live out here b/c my house is furnished and I'm in a very rural area..cost of living is ridiculously cheap......so 22K more than that by 3 yrs is 66K....now the other money comes from money I had saved during high school working after school and on the weekends and during the summer....putting in very long hours (yes I had no life as a teen...oh well...better off because of it). Oh and the 25K that I will have by fall is the estimate from selling one of the two vehicles I own (won't need a Ford F-250 in the big city!) and from an annual performance bonus...thats why I did not include this 25K with the 100K....b/c I didn't know what the pickup will bring and if I will get the bonus...but the 100K is for sure there. Thanks for the reply!
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