Yes, I spoken to Don on several occasions, met him in Vegas, and have trained some of his equity spread pairs traders to trade futures spreads. I would agree that he would be a great resource and that Bright is the gold standard for equity pairs trading. I would also agree that having seven or eight clients talking up how much success they are having using my futures spreads model to swing trade equity spreads during our weekly group webinars is optimistic ( at least for me ) but not truly representative.
I would also agree 100% that intramarket futures spreads are the cheapest most cost effective futures leverage out there. I get all that.
My only point in this endeavor is to gain some experience plying my craft in the equity space. At this point I would say that I truly know very little about equities. My background is futures of all kinds, cash fixed income basis trades, and lots of bilateral and financially-cleared OTC energy.
I will say one thing: that the way I model and trade futures spreads is indeed a different approach than the way the Bright clients traded equity pairs. That could be good, or that could be bad.
If I put $20K in an IB account and I lose it trading equity spread combinations then so be it. At least I will have done some equity trades unrelated to my 401 K plan.