Schondfeld or Hold Brothers

Trader2B in your original post you did not specify if you are new to this business or not. if you are new you may i can understand why you want to trade prop, but be mindfull that any place that will let you trade their $$ is going to make you sign a non-competition contract.

I trade prop at hold brothers and am about to end my two year contract. while my experience at hold brothers has been valueble, i will never sign a contract like that again. I have watched the rates of off-contract and offsite traders fall to virtually nothing, while at the same time i have had to subsist on a fraction of my trading profits. the contract eliminates any ability a trader has to re-negotiate ticket prices. with advances in tech the rates that firms charge will probably go down in the future, and the ability to restructure your costs is essential to success as a trader. consider yourself warned

hold brothers is a dysfuntional place to work at. the two brothers do their best to distance themselves from the traders. the jersey city office is virtually empty most days. usually less than a dozen people are really trying to trade on a floor that is the size of a hockey rink. the in-house trading software is full of bugs, and the traders have given up hope that the software will ever work with any stability. many veteran traders (good traders at that) have left because of dissatisfaction with the company.

i do not know very much about schonfeld. plan to check them out soon. perhaps will be working there if they make a good offer when i go off contract.

i would appreciate any info about schonfeld or andover that anyone else could provide.
thank you.
 
In all fairness to hold brothers, there are a lot of firms with empty offices that were once full to capacity. However I too have heard bad things and have a difficlut time dealing with the hold brothers. But I have had the same difficulties with other firms too. Andover has good software and horrible charting. The president can also be difficult to have a rational conversation with and has done some shady deals. Protrader has decent software (good for position traders) but horrible connectivity in their offices outside of texas. Upper management is trustworty but very slow to get things done.

What traders need to remember is that it is really a traders market right now for cutting deals. There are a lot of nearly empty offices out there that need traders, especially in the bigger cities. Pretty easy to go across the street and cut a good deal with a firm. With not a lot of new traders coming into the game -- many of the firms will undercut the other to get existing traders into the offices. Better for them to make a little money on the traders than to lose money with an empty office sitting there with long term leases. Also negociating as a group gives you a lot more bargaining power.
 
I think that it is the firm's that have the leverage in picking people they want. The ones that are still in business and strong are going to be picky about what cowboys they bring in to their strong LLC. The weaker ones that are barely hanging on will be very aggressive in rates, but would you want to put your money into an insolvent LLC? Aren't these firms giving low rates in such desperate straights to get and keep traders... I would be scared of the probability that my capital would go bye-bye that I would pay the higher rate at a more stable firm and consider it an iinsurance cost.
 
If you are a super active trader (trading well over a 100k shares per month) i think the lack of SIPC protection is worth the risk.

I trade at a prop trading firm (which will remain nameless, not trying to promtote here) and my volume is about 200k shares per month. Because of my high volume I have a great deal. I have a $50k deposit at a firm with outstanding risk mgmt and I get 20 to 1 interday leverage. Over the last year I have saved close to $200,000 in commisssions as compared to the lower priced retail firms.

Now if the prop firm I'm at goes belly up (unlikely in my opinion) yes i will lose my $50k, and yes i will be upset. But given the cumalitive savings I am still way way way ahead.

I have traded both prop and retail and I have come to the this conclusion: its a simple business decision and I think if you are a serious active trader, then going prop is the way to go.
 
If you are a super active trader (trading well over a 100k shares per month) i think the lack of SIPC protection is worth the risk.

I trade at a prop trading firm (which will remain nameless, not trying to promtote here) and my volume is about 200k shares per month. Because of my high volume I have a great deal. I have a $50k deposit at a firm with outstanding risk mgmt and I get 20 to 1 interday leverage. Over the last year I have saved close to $200,000 in commisssions as compared to the lower priced retail firms.




First of all, a "super active trader" does well over 100k PER DAY.

Second, if you trade 200k per month there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that you could have saved close to $200,000 in commissions.
Even at a unbelievably ridiculous ticket deal (say 25 dollars per thousand) your total commissions for the year would be $60,000.
How did you come up with your numbers??????
 
Originally posted by VOLUME
If you are a super active trader (trading well over a 100k shares per month) i think the lack of SIPC protection is worth the risk.

I trade at a prop trading firm (which will remain nameless, not trying to promtote here) and my volume is about 200k shares per month. Because of my high volume I have a great deal. I have a $50k deposit at a firm with outstanding risk mgmt and I get 20 to 1 interday leverage. Over the last year I have saved close to $200,000 in commisssions as compared to the lower priced retail firms.




First of all, a "super active trader" does well over 100k PER DAY.

Second, if you trade 200k per month there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that you could have saved close to $200,000 in commissions.
Even at a unbelievably ridiculous ticket deal (say 25 dollars per thousand) your total commissions for the year would be $60,000.
How did you come up with your numbers??????
More...


My mistake. I meant to say 200k shares/day or 4 million shares/month.
 
I'm not certain where etrader is getting his information, but Hold Brothers does have prop operations in NY, NJ, Chicago and San Francisco.
 
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