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The Perfect Prop Firm
- Thread starter Maverick74
- Start date
Quote from Maverick74:
Absolutely not. Not in the same form as it does now.
It's surprising that you think it will even exist given where you think the prop model is headed. IOW, trade at firm cost and give up PnL for tech and software. If your ideal candidate is the basis/curve/spread trader then I have to ask what would such a firm offer these guys in terms of tech and software that they don't already have with CQG's autospreader and a RJO account?
Really now? Wasn't Kingtree one of the biggest liquidity providers of the ES at one time? Wasn't that scalping minis or providing liquidity?
I'm going to share a little information.. Dr. Steenbarger worked with a lot of Chicago prop firms. I was asking him about Bone and his services and about spread trading. I ask him if I should focus on direction or spreading and whether the best/most prop traders were directional or spreading. He told me the best traders were directional and he had never heard of bone. He said that most Chicago props were directional. Maybe he lied.. maybe he misunderstood my question. That was my question and that was many years ago. I find a lot of idiots here and catch them in lies/stupid tactics which is I don't come here. I don't feel it is my place to correct all the lies here.
Of course, this was what in the 90s when institutions were posting size. Okay so the game change slightly.. now they are scalping spreads using something like CQG and trading mean reversion with some directional trades. Or maybe they are a HFT firm and scanning a wide universe of stocks for anomalies... Or maybe they get to monitor an autotrading box all evening.. lol
You think we don't know what their game is?
We know their game Bone. We know how they don't trade ACD. They're fading ACD all day. We know you're game. We know everything. We're the market.
If I'm wrong then just prove it.
I'm going to share a little information.. Dr. Steenbarger worked with a lot of Chicago prop firms. I was asking him about Bone and his services and about spread trading. I ask him if I should focus on direction or spreading and whether the best/most prop traders were directional or spreading. He told me the best traders were directional and he had never heard of bone. He said that most Chicago props were directional. Maybe he lied.. maybe he misunderstood my question. That was my question and that was many years ago. I find a lot of idiots here and catch them in lies/stupid tactics which is I don't come here. I don't feel it is my place to correct all the lies here.
Of course, this was what in the 90s when institutions were posting size. Okay so the game change slightly.. now they are scalping spreads using something like CQG and trading mean reversion with some directional trades. Or maybe they are a HFT firm and scanning a wide universe of stocks for anomalies... Or maybe they get to monitor an autotrading box all evening.. lol
You think we don't know what their game is?
We know their game Bone. We know how they don't trade ACD. They're fading ACD all day. We know you're game. We know everything. We're the market.
If I'm wrong then just prove it.
Quote from Maverick74:
See my post above. Because they are not hiring you to scalp minis or AAPL stock. LOL. You have no idea what trades these firms are engaged in and there is no way you could execute them in your IB account. I'm sorry, those are just the facts. You are 100% right, if your definition of trading is scalping e-minis all day long, then there is absolutely no reason to go prop.
And btw, I don't run a prop firm nor will I ever run a prop firm. I just get the feeling you are not even clear on what a prop firm is.
Quote from rallymode:
It's surprising that you think it will even exist given where you think the prop model is headed. IOW, trade at firm cost and give up PnL for tech and software. If your ideal candidate is the basis/curve/spread trader then I have to ask what would such a firm offer these guys in terms of tech and software that they don't already have with CQG's autospreader and a RJO account?
I should probably hand off this question to Bone, but when we are talking about basis trading, we are talking about cash against futures. The cash market is very hard to get access to. It requires collateral. That is where the edge is in the basis trade. On straight futures trading, where a lot of guys are making money is on the non exchange supported spreads. In other words, the implied spreads. There is no margin relief on inter-exchange spreads so the cost of capital is a big problem. And executing implied spreads is a bit tricky. I just don't think you can do this effectively in a retail account with RJO, in my opinion of course.
On the equity side, you have to constant pain of Reg T on equity spreads which make it impossible to earn a decent return on leverage. Not to mention execution is very important in stocks or ETF's that are not as liquid. Then of course options I think it's pretty obvious the advantages to fast order routing and good execution.
Quote from Lucias:
Really now? Wasn't Kingtree one of the biggest liquidity providers of the ES at one time? Wasn't that scalping minis or providing liquidity?
I'm going to share a little information.. Dr. Steenbarger worked with a lot of Chicago prop firms. I was asking him about Bone and his services and about spread trading. I ask him if I should focus on direction or spreading and whether the best/most prop traders were directional or spreading. He told me the best traders were directional and he had never heard of bone. He said that most Chicago props were directional. Maybe he lied.. maybe he misunderstood my question. That was my question and that was many years ago. I find a lot of idiots here and catch them in lies/stupid tactics which is I don't come here. I don't feel it is my place to correct all the lies here.
Of course, this was what in the 90s when institutions were posting size. Okay so the game change slightly.. now they are scalping spreads using something like CQG and trading mean reversion with some directional trades. Or maybe they are a HFT firm and scanning a wide universe of stocks for anomalies... Or maybe they get to monitor an autotrading box all evening.. lol
You think we don't know what their game is?
We know their game Bone. We know how they don't trade ACD. They're fading ACD all day. We know you're game. We know everything. We're the market.
If I'm wrong then just prove it.
Lucias, have you been drinking? That post was pretty incoherent and I didn't even understand most of it. First of all, Kingstree stopped trading ES actively like in 2004! They were pretty big players at the time in the e-mini. However, that shop is long past it's due date. I believe they were bought out by another group and only had 5 guys left from the over 200 they had at their peak. And I call bullshit on your talk with Brett. Unless you spoke with him over 5 or 6 years ago.
I can tell you that over 90% of the trading in Chicago on the futures side is spread trading. I'll back my big fat mouth up with real hard cash. If you want this bet, let me know. I'll have Don Bright hold our money. This will be the bet. We take every single firm listed on CME's website as a clearing member who also has a prop business. We call each and everyone one of them and ask them what % of their trading is directional. I say it's 10% or less. I say 90% of the firms we call will answer yes to directional trading being less then 10%. I'll bet you any amount of money you can afford to put up. We both wire the funds to Don Bright to hold in escrow. I already know most these firms and I have their numbers. If you are interested in the bet, I'm 100% serious. I can get a contract drafted up tomorrow.
Quote from gmst:
Can you give some examples of what those things are ? I have traded only on TWS so will be interested to see in what respect you find lightspeed much better? Thanks
I am a pretty much bare bones trader; give me level 2, time and sales, a few scanners and I'm good to go. There are some aspects to the scanners which IB doesn't have; beyond that, when you are talking about the pure technicals of the platform, I think LS is just much more intuitive visually vs TWS's excel based monochrome. Then again, I remember hating LS when I had to switch over compared with Anvil, and before that I thought Anvil sucked compared to RealTick. So there's alot of adaptation time involved in settling into any new platform; but ultimately you cannot compare TWS with most of the dedicated trading platforms out there, it's just too cumbersome in too many ways to explain. Especially if you want to track say 6-7 names closely, I find it near impossible with TWS, if only because visually there's no variation graphically in size and direction.
Whats wrong with being a low volume directional trader at a prop firm? Thats not my problem thats the firm's. I pay them.
P/L is P/L so $1000 profit is $1000 profit whether it's a directional on 1000 shares or on a $500k arbed account. In fact its less costly and risky.
I'm apparently missing something.
P/L is P/L so $1000 profit is $1000 profit whether it's a directional on 1000 shares or on a $500k arbed account. In fact its less costly and risky.
I'm apparently missing something.
Quote from VinMan:
Whats wrong with being a low volume directional trader at a prop firm? Thats not my problem thats the firm's. I pay them.
P/L is P/L so $1000 profit is $1000 profit whether it's a directional on 1000 shares or on a $500k arbed account. In fact its less costly and risky.
I'm apparently missing something.
You definitely are missing something. LOL. Your firm is not going to stay in business if you are a low volume trader. Whether or not you are directional is irrelevant. And it sounds like you pay them very little.
Quote from yobo:
Just a simple question?
Maverick if you have a strategy or group of traders that are consistently profitable and making above market returns, why not simply get into the business of raising capital and offering investors a return on capital?
Let me be clear about something. I did not start this thread as a covert recruiting mission. I'm not trying to do anything here for myself economically. I've had these conversations with Don before over phone and other firms and I just wanted to consolidate the discussion on to one thread vs having 50 threads about it. I am also not trying to tell anyone how they should trade or even pass judgement on how they are trading. When people ask me questions like what is such and such firm looking for, I answer. That does not mean I am recruiting or putting an offer out there. Just wanted to put this disclaimer out.