Ray Bitar and Bright Trading

Quote from shopster:

" Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money. "

Big Ed
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I'd rather lose my money in the market, than make it by working for somebody else. I'm still trying to lose some of that money I made during those miserable years when I had a real job. And I won't be happy until it is purged out of my system.
 
Quote from Don Bright:.........
As far as trading goes, it's like learning about flying a plane or driving a car IMO. You really need to learn the "actual" basics, not some nonsense in most the books I've read. We do our best to show people all those basics from FV and PREM calcs to smart order routing etc. .........Don:) [/B]
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Funny you should mention flying as I hold a license as "commercial pilot, single and multi-engine, land - instrument." My training came from a school that knew how to teach pilots to fly and this was demonstrated by the very high rate of pilots who got their licenses and went on to successful flying careers.

My suppostion is that while you and/or your brother might know how to trade, you don't have a clue when it comes to teaching beginners to trade successfully or the state of your business and the industry in general would be different.

My opinion, like other posters have mentioned, is that training that produces such miserable results is still all but worthless.

My information and opinion is that over recent years beginning traders fail with your training almost as often as beginning traders w/o your training. So what is the value of the training - I say not much.

As to your auto trading - I say what a crock - If you had an automated system available to traders that was worth spit you wouldn't be able to get through the crowd to become a Brigfht trader.

I must ask - Do you agree with my suppostion that the retail prop trading industry including Bright is in a dramatic decline and that decline doesn't come from anything other than a high failure rate amongst traders?

I attented one Bright webinar that presented what I thought was a laughable presentation on fair value. When you say "all those basics from FV and PREM calcs to smart order routing etc" I say that fair value and smart routing are nowhere near enough and that clinging to the assumption that it is explains at lease part of the reasons for the decline at Bright and in the industry as a whole

I see the industry, including Bright, as one that has fallen into disrepute. When you say you are "doing well," to me it stinks of more denial. What is the aggregate number of Bright traders and Bright locations at your heyday and what is it now and why?

I have spoken with your Vegas IT guy and with you and I heard your webinar on fair value and I am left with serious doubts about not only the current state of your offering but your ability to significantly change it to the degree that it produces dramatically more positive results.

I live not far from your Vegas shop and have been to your place several times to see if I could find the slightest reason to join up. What I saw was a physical plant that was not all that clean or well maintained, a room with a handful of traders all looking lost and your lame pitch full of non sequiturs along with a complete disdain for anything technical.

I will never forget my shock when you told me directly to my face that no one makes any money trading futures and that no technology can help anybody trade or learn to trade.

For the sake of the fodder, I do hope that your program evolves into something that gives the fish at least a better hope of success. If your changes are credible and seem to offer any value above what I am currently trading then I will be at the head of the line to plunk down my deposit, renew my 7 and pay retail juice to trade in your shop.

Jack
 
Ah, Jack. I was simply using examples. I bring our top quant's and others who show a great proclivity for trading and teaching, makes my life much simpler. I provide some basics, and turn things over to my top guys.

As far as the Industry goes, sure there has been some consolidation, thank goodness....way too many fly by nights a few years back, bad for everyone. And, as mentioned, I'm being asked about adding a few hundred traders from another Firm. Waiting for more details.

At Bright, we are in the process of diversifying our own business model, and I will be discussing it here. I think I may know which webinar you attended, and I think I was simply answering email type questions, which is part of what I like to do. And, it helps some of the newbies.

Coming up soon, hopefully (regulatory hurdles etc. going our way) - new and better ways to trade, for a wider range of individuals and funds.

Don

edit: (still logged in, read the rest of your post)... ah, the futures. In our experience, we've had everyone except our family lose money trading emini's. Did I speak in an absolute that of course is not correct? Yes, but when someone says "the best hamburger in the world" do they really mean it? Sorry if that bothered you, seriously. A lot of friends make money trading futures, we don't have a good rate with GS, and don't offer them. We Prefer to use SPY or other ETF"s.

edit #2 (still trading a pair with earnings after the close, LOL)...

You would be more than welcome to join us Jack, thanks for the consideration. I don't hold grudges, not healthy.

I hope that helps a bit,

Don
 
Quote from Don Bright:

Ah, Jack. I was simply using examples. I bring our top quant's and others who show a great proclivity for trading and teaching, makes my life much simpler. I provide some basics, and turn things over to my top guys.

As far as the Industry goes, sure there has been some consolidation, thank goodness....way too many fly by nights a few years back, bad for everyone. And, as mentioned, I'm being asked about adding a few hundred traders from another Firm. Waiting for more details.

At Bright, we are in the process of diversifying our own business model, and I will be discussing it here. I think I may know which webinar you attended, and I think I was simply answering email type questions, which is part of what I like to do. And, it helps some of the newbies.

Coming up soon, hopefully (regulatory hurdles etc. going our way) - new and better ways to trade, for a wider range of individuals and funds.

Don

edit: (still logged in, read the rest of your post)... ah, the futures. In our experience, we've had everyone except our family lose money trading emini's. Did I speak in an absolute that of course is not correct? Yes, but when someone says "the best hamburger in the world" do they really mean it? Sorry if that bothered you, seriously. A lot of friends make money trading futures, we don't have a good rate with GS, and don't offer them. We Prefer to use SPY or other ETF"s.

edit #2 (still trading a pair with earnings after the close, LOL)...

You would be more than welcome to join us Jack, thanks for the consideration. I don't hold grudges, not healthy.

I hope that helps a bit,

Don
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Don,

Let's be honest here. You guys don't offer futures because Bright makes no money on the commissions. You can't say with a straight face that guys who make money trading SPY can't make money trading ES. GS does charge a high rate for futures which really prohibits Bright from adding much on top for themselves. You guys make much more on your end having a guy trade SPY vs ES.

As far as Ray Bitar? Come on man.....the guy is going to prison for 150 years. We all make mistakes. You once had a guy managing an office who turned out to be a bad guy. I am sure you guys didn't knowingly hire a guy like this. Go watch the 2 hour+ interview with Howard Lederer. Read some of the info out there. Bitar is not only a criminal (sorry....but taking players deposits as profit distributions is pretty damn bad), but people who know him/dealt with him all agree he is basically a clueless moron.
 
Quote from traderchi128:

Don,

Let's be honest here. You guys don't offer futures because Bright makes no money on the commissions. You can't say with a straight face that guys who make money trading SPY can't make money trading ES. GS does charge a high rate for futures which really prohibits Bright from adding much on top for themselves. You guys make much more on your end having a guy trade SPY vs ES.

As far as Ray Bitar? Come on man.....the guy is going to prison for 150 years. We all make mistakes. You once had a guy managing an office who turned out to be a bad guy. I am sure you guys didn't knowingly hire a guy like this. Go watch the 2 hour+ interview with Howard Lederer. Read some of the info out there. Bitar is not only a criminal (sorry....but taking players deposits as profit distributions is pretty damn bad), but people who know him/dealt with him all agree he is basically a clueless moron.
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No reason to lie, I stated we don't have a good deal with GS on futures. Of course guys who trade SPY well could make money on fut's....and Vice-Versa, that's the whole point. We trade about 50,000 e's a month, sometimes more, sometimes less, just not enough to make for a good deal.

Ray was totally independent, as are all our managers, not ever an employee. I know Howard, and I saw a lot of his stuff. They're after him and his 7 homes in Vegas. Don't worry, I keep up.

Don
 
Quote from Don Bright:

No reason to lie, I stated we don't have a good deal with GS on futures. Of course guys who trade SPY well could make money on fut's....and Vice-Versa, that's the whole point. We trade about 50,000 e's a month, sometimes more, sometimes less, just not enough to make for a good deal.

Ray was totally independent, as are all our managers, not ever an employee. I know Howard, and I saw a lot of his stuff. They're after him and his 7 homes in Vegas. Don't worry, I keep up.

Don
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Ok...just thought you were implying that people can't make money trading futures (ES) but could by trading SPY's. Didn't make sense. It has been posted on here that you had said that people don't make money trading futures and were much better off trading equities. At the end of the day, trading is trading....the guys I know who do well could probably trade anything from Wheat Futures to IBM stock.

As far as the poker thing. I am sure you are much more up to date than most. At the end of the day Bitar, Lederer, and Ferguson took HUGE payouts while all the poker guys who had money in accounts with FT have got nothing back. Maybe only Bitar was the true criminal here. But why hasn't Lederer paid back a dime so the compnay can start making the players good on their cash ? He in fact asked another player (Dwan) to payback winnings to the company so they could stay afloat, while Lederer didn't put any of his 40 million payout back in? IF you ask me, he isn't much better than Bitar. As far as Ferguson...he seems to be in the same boat as Lederer. Collected a ton of money from FT, not paid a dime back.
 
Quote from Don Bright:Ah, Jack. I was simply using examples. I bring our top quant's and others who show a great proclivity for trading and teaching, makes my life much simpler. I provide some basics, and turn things over to my top guys.

So how do you explain that even with what you call the best training in the world conducted all these top traders, the vast majority of beginning traders who have received all this training still fail and are long gone from Bright.

As far as the Industry goes, sure there has been some consolidation, thank goodness....way too many fly by nights.

Does this mean there has been no similar decline/consolidation at Bright? I think it has been similar or even worse. Plus it may come as a complete shock but because of what I call predatory practices - that even though you may be more stable financially than most some consider Bright as "fly by night" as any of the rest.

............I think I may know which webinar you attended, and I think I was simply answering email type questions,

No, for once it wasn't your comments I was bashing it was the words of that fair value vendor/expert that conducted about half of the whole webinar that I found laughable. Was he another of those "smartest guys on the planet" that you brag about?

Coming up soon, hopefully (regulatory hurdles etc. going our way) - new and better ways to trade, for a wider range of individuals and funds.

as to regulatory hurdles, I would certainly hope that they might one day be enough to stop the blood letting plus and BTW what are the regulatory hurdles that you find so daunting

You would be more than welcome to join us Jack, thanks for the consideration. I don't hold grudges, not healthy.

I don't hold grudges either and I would be there in 2 minutes if I thought there was even a hint of value. The difference between me and most of those that come to your shop and lose is that I have been involved in the markets at a professional level for some time and can recognize both value and a non sequitur.

I think your model stinks, I think your training is all but worthless and while your training may change, I don't think the changes are any more likely to change the end result than the changes you have made so far.

Further I don't think it is all about a lack of ethics, I think it is just as much about technical naivete, denial, poor advice and a great resistance to a modification of what I call your predatory practices.

You may change your training or anything else but I don't think a change in results is very likely as long as you fail to take responsibility for results and until your bottom line is affected more by individual trader success than just plain volumes transacted.
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Jack
 
Don, the only two firms I can think of that might be able to merge with you is Avatar and Great Point. Especially if you are talking about 200 traders. I doubt G2 has that many guys left. I was in their office this spring and it looked like a ghost town. I have no idea why would you want to bring on "more" equity guys. I'm sure you have some reason I haven't thought of.

Regarding Ray Bitar, I don't know anything about the guy but you are kind of brushing it off as he was this independent guy so it's not our problem. Don, who you "choose" to associate with in this business speaks volumes about the lengths you are willing to go to to make a dime. Now I don't think you had any idea this guy was a con man when you met him, but I also doubt he smelled like roses. I think it's unfortunate. I saw this first hand at my old firm how men in power will look the other way if it means a few more dollars in their pocket.

Anyway, if I were your adviser and I was advising you on an acquisition, I would tell you to find a group of guys in another sector or area where you are NOT already involved in and expand your offerings. Find an automation group, a futures group, options group, portfolio group, etc. Don't just go with more of the same. Anyway, good luck with whoever it is.
 
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