Why Did Bright Close It's Dallas Office?
- Thread starter Jessica Spears
- Start date
Going by the posts of Cash Coyne "cashonly" of the last few weeks, I also started to wonder about the above.
Your the only one cares enough to post 8 times on the same thread.
An office is an overhead expense. It costs a lot of money to open and maintain an office. Each office is its own money center, i.e. it has t pay for itself to be worthwhile. If the costs (like in a city like New York where rents are through the roof- why is it so hard for you to pick up on that) are high, it is easier to close the office and let the traders who wish to do so trade remote. Same revenues, now no overhead costs.
Anyone who takes a basic business course understands that cutting costs while still providing your customer a service is a great way to increase revenues. Bright closes a few of the more expensive locations where traders can trade remote and take the costs off the table. The few who must be in an office to trade either adapt or leave and other traders take their place remotely.
If I was Bright, I would close offices in major cities where costs are high and bank the coin from my remoties
Anyone who takes a basic business course understands that cutting costs while still providing your customer a service is a great way to increase revenues. Bright closes a few of the more expensive locations where traders can trade remote and take the costs off the table. The few who must be in an office to trade either adapt or leave and other traders take their place remotely.
If I was Bright, I would close offices in major cities where costs are high and bank the coin from my remoties
Quote from ChaosNSX:
Agreed.. Along with Taxes, Everyone needs to stop moving here. Its already getting a litte to crowded for my taste. Still, not as bad as back in college in Boston.
I agree, my wife and I were both raised in The Woodlands and now the suburbs extend all the way to Huntsville (whats that like 70 miles from Hou to Huntsville). Some of our friends drive from College Station to IAH (airport) to work daily.
We decided to live in the Heights for now for the commute but may move back up their in the next 2 years. Where abouts in Hou are you?
I can't speak for Don or Bob or anyone else, and I don't know anything about Dallas. But when I was at the Bright bootcamp, we were told that the great majority of new traders choose to trade remote, and that a lot of the offices were closing down because of a lack of interest.
I live in Vancouver and was trading out of the Bright Vancouver office for a while. There was just the three of us, then I left, and the office manager ended up moving so I think the office must have shut down.
Bright HQ had nothing to do with this decision, it's just that high speed Internet access from the home is getting very cheap (no need to lease T1 lines anymore) and the interest in trading out of an office is drying up.
If, for some reason, you want to trade from an office and none is available, I imagine that all you would need to do is find a few other peope to join you, lease some space, and Bright would support you.
I live in Vancouver and was trading out of the Bright Vancouver office for a while. There was just the three of us, then I left, and the office manager ended up moving so I think the office must have shut down.
Bright HQ had nothing to do with this decision, it's just that high speed Internet access from the home is getting very cheap (no need to lease T1 lines anymore) and the interest in trading out of an office is drying up.
If, for some reason, you want to trade from an office and none is available, I imagine that all you would need to do is find a few other peope to join you, lease some space, and Bright would support you.
The Dallas office was closed a long time ago. It's suprising someone is bringing it up now. I see someone mentioned that there would have been more noise if the NYC office was closed. It was, and there wasn't.
I have been Bright's remote manager since 1998 and trading since 1997. When I started, trading remote was not an easy proposition. The direct access software was built to handle direct lines, not the internet and the internet at that time was not built to handle the massive volume of data that can come down the wire. Since that time I have worked with hundreds of traders who wanted to go remote.
Here are some of the things that have happened during that time:
1. The internet got much better and much more reliable. The Direct Access software was optimized for the internet.
2. NYC was bombed. A lot of people figured why go into an office that was 2 blocks from war zone and started trading from home.
3. Cities have gotten more crowded. It takes longer to commute.
4. Gas has gone thru the roof... it's nearly 5 times the cost of what it used to be.
5. Computing power has increased and the cost of it has decreased dramatically. It's shifted from being expensive to have a reliable trading system to being able to have a rock solid system with far more computing power than is needed for just $400!
5. Communication has gotten much easier, what with unlimited long-distance, instant messaging, online conference calls, virtual communities (such as ET), etc.
So, when you put all these together, when a trader is trying to decide whether he should trade in an office or remote, he is basically saying:
"Should I get up an hour early than I need to, get dressed, jump in the car and fight traffic (or deal with mass transit), pay tolls, high gas prices, extra wear and tear on my vehicle, go to an office where I could be distracted by other traders who are doing different strategies than I am, order lunch delivered by a high price deli so I won't get to far from my trading station, then at the end of the day, turn around and go through the commuting hassle all over again going back home, and have blown 2-3 hours of my day just going from place to place?"
"Or should I roll out of bed getting an extra hour of sleep, stroll 20 feet to my home office, do my morning prep, trade in the comfort of my own desk, the chair which is most comfortable to me, chat with only the people I want to chat with, grab grub from my own fridge, and when the trading day is done, start my personal life an hour earlier (perhaps play with my kids, take a walk, go swimming, whatever)?"
In that case the decision is pretty easy for the trader.
So, many traders have asked themselves that over the years and chose "plan B" again and again until it finally becomes economically unfeasable to pay for a fully equipped office that no one uses. Basically, traders would come in, get some trades under their belt and then once they felt comfortable, they'd go remote.
It's the economics/environment/lifestyle of the new millenium that made the determination to close offices. The offices that do remain open are where there is either a core group of traders who enjoy working together and find what they get out of that outweighs the hassle and expense of coming into an office OR it is an office where a significant amount of training is done such as our Vegas or Vancouver offices.
Nowadays, those that want to trade in an office, generally come to one of the training offices and experience trading in an environment supported by some of the best teachers as opposed to just being in an office with whatever other trader you plop down next to. It's worth it for many traders to go to Vegas for a month or more to do this until they can stand on their own, then go back home and be remote. And believe it or not, the cost of one month of that with a structured trading course ends up being much less than trading in an office for a year and having all those ancillary commuting and other costs.
Anyway, that's the way I've seen it happen.
Cash
I have been Bright's remote manager since 1998 and trading since 1997. When I started, trading remote was not an easy proposition. The direct access software was built to handle direct lines, not the internet and the internet at that time was not built to handle the massive volume of data that can come down the wire. Since that time I have worked with hundreds of traders who wanted to go remote.
Here are some of the things that have happened during that time:
1. The internet got much better and much more reliable. The Direct Access software was optimized for the internet.
2. NYC was bombed. A lot of people figured why go into an office that was 2 blocks from war zone and started trading from home.
3. Cities have gotten more crowded. It takes longer to commute.
4. Gas has gone thru the roof... it's nearly 5 times the cost of what it used to be.
5. Computing power has increased and the cost of it has decreased dramatically. It's shifted from being expensive to have a reliable trading system to being able to have a rock solid system with far more computing power than is needed for just $400!
5. Communication has gotten much easier, what with unlimited long-distance, instant messaging, online conference calls, virtual communities (such as ET), etc.
So, when you put all these together, when a trader is trying to decide whether he should trade in an office or remote, he is basically saying:
"Should I get up an hour early than I need to, get dressed, jump in the car and fight traffic (or deal with mass transit), pay tolls, high gas prices, extra wear and tear on my vehicle, go to an office where I could be distracted by other traders who are doing different strategies than I am, order lunch delivered by a high price deli so I won't get to far from my trading station, then at the end of the day, turn around and go through the commuting hassle all over again going back home, and have blown 2-3 hours of my day just going from place to place?"
"Or should I roll out of bed getting an extra hour of sleep, stroll 20 feet to my home office, do my morning prep, trade in the comfort of my own desk, the chair which is most comfortable to me, chat with only the people I want to chat with, grab grub from my own fridge, and when the trading day is done, start my personal life an hour earlier (perhaps play with my kids, take a walk, go swimming, whatever)?"
In that case the decision is pretty easy for the trader.
So, many traders have asked themselves that over the years and chose "plan B" again and again until it finally becomes economically unfeasable to pay for a fully equipped office that no one uses. Basically, traders would come in, get some trades under their belt and then once they felt comfortable, they'd go remote.
It's the economics/environment/lifestyle of the new millenium that made the determination to close offices. The offices that do remain open are where there is either a core group of traders who enjoy working together and find what they get out of that outweighs the hassle and expense of coming into an office OR it is an office where a significant amount of training is done such as our Vegas or Vancouver offices.
Nowadays, those that want to trade in an office, generally come to one of the training offices and experience trading in an environment supported by some of the best teachers as opposed to just being in an office with whatever other trader you plop down next to. It's worth it for many traders to go to Vegas for a month or more to do this until they can stand on their own, then go back home and be remote. And believe it or not, the cost of one month of that with a structured trading course ends up being much less than trading in an office for a year and having all those ancillary commuting and other costs.
Anyway, that's the way I've seen it happen.
Cash