Hi NewGuy
Yea, I would go the fully backed route without any deposit IF I have no idea about trading regardless of whether I have money or not.
I have said otherwise in the past if you look at my other posts. But after speaking with some elitetrader members, I realized that my thinking was wrong. For ex. One trader who had no prior knowledge of trading, went it to a firm and deposited 5k to trade and lost all of it in a week. He did get 100% payout and a good commission rate. But what good is it if you can't make money? Then he deposited another 5k and that was gone too. And he gave one final try and now he is on the verge of losing that too. The lesson here is that when it is personal money, things become way too emotional for a new trader. It is better to go the fully backed route with a prop firm and create some revenues for your firm with which you can trade comfortably as I have described previously. Once you become good at this, you can always go to your firm and tell them that you wanna deposit money and get all of your profits. And if you're consistent, they won't wanna let you go. They're not looking for guys who make 20k one day and lose 15k the next day. Those traders don't last very long. They want consistent guys who can make even as little as 200 consistently every day. I am talking based on my firm only, I don't know about others.
And yes a second job if you're in the east coast is very difficult to get unless you're a taxi driver, bartender, warehouse guy, etc.. This is another burden for starting traders even if you go the fully backed route. But this burden becomes light if you're single and have no obligations.
So my opinion does not change depending on what you mentioned since depositing money to trade with no prior knowledge is like throwing away your cash to the market. However, if you're experienced and know that you can trade profitably, then deposit money by all means.
