SMB Capital Trading ?

they advertise positions on craigslist. one of their selling points was they all go out and get drunk together and hit on one of their colleagues sisters. id say dont work there.

Closer 121 thanks for the input yeah Id say the same thing.

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.  Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too, can become great."
- Mark Twain
As a partner at SMB Capital, www.smbcap.com, I read the previous posts about us and was deeply disappointed.  My partner and I (Wharton/Fordham Law, UConn Law) have spent the past two years, along with our Head Trader and Senior Traders building an extensive, demanding and thoughtful training program.  For those who receive an invitation to interview with us we show you exactly what we teach our new traders.  Our training program consists of 150 plus written lectures, audio lectures, a library of trading videos, and that is all supplemented with our Real Time Audio Feed.  We offer Mentorship from professional traders with collectively over 20 plus years of experience.  For five weeks every second of every day has been planned so that you are armed with the trading skills and a trading system necessary to succeed.  Succinctly, our training program provides you with an edge in today's market.
SMB Capital has one goal: to build the best short term trading desk on the Street.  We provide: a) an extensive, demanding and thoughtful training program; b) an environment where our traders share valuable trading information; c) Mentors who do whatever we can to help our traders succeed- whether financially or with our time; d) a professional trading environment where people enjoy working.       
The link below provides testimonials from some who have trained with SMB.  We do whatever we can to help our traders recognize their trading potential: http://www.smbtraining.com/testimonials.php
The story in our craigslist ad is true.  And we relay that story to let you know that our desk works together and enjoys each others company.  It is also just a pretty funny story to us.
For those looking for a trading firm, please take the time to visit many different firms.  And make your own judgement about who is a good fit for you.
Mike Bellafiore   

they are featured on season 2 of Wall Street Warriors.

that definitely is a first for WSO. A person posting in defense of his own company and publicly admitting their title/name. Bravo Mr. Bellafiore.

i think SMB capital is the best way to learn about the markets. it's a great opportunity to work with the smartest, most well connected, ambitious, and classy people in the financial industry.

you guys really need to stop the bashing. Most of you are just college students who have accomplished nothing on your own.

I retract my first comment and I have a great deal of respect for Mr.Bellafiore for coming out to defend his outfit and explaining it clearly in a no BS manner.

i actually take back what i said earlier. i just saw smb in action on tv, they seem..interesting. im sure everybody there is very smart though.

SMB Capital is a small shop - you will LEARN A LOT there. I think it might be the best place to actually 'intern' - if you are not worried about full time offers

Hi fellow monkeys,

I found this topic rather interesting, I am one of the unfortunate 2008 graduates looking for a job and was rather desperate till recently when after interviewing with many banks, finally landed a good position trading equity derivatives.

So midway through the recruiting cycle, I started looking at Prop firms and wondered what they were all about. In fact, one of the best prop firms out there would be first new york securities, where they pay you a base of 50k till you graduate to become a trader. Not sure about bonus.

But at the same time, I came across many firms like SMB that basically does day trading, offers you a job that pays NOTHING, and cites the upside as "training". I mean come on, who the heck would fall for this? Graduates wouldn't pay SMB any attention during good times, but in market conditions such as 2007, 2002 where recruiting was bad, I would think SMB is better than nothing.

Now here's the thing, I realized that nothing turns out to be better than SMB. If you join a prop firm, and let's say you make a lot of money. You can't jump to a bank and trade the large books cause you are still unproven. And this is logical because we see a lot of hedge funds become really successful, but when the AUM grows, the scale does the fund in. Best eg would be julian robertson's tiger management. If you can trade small positions well using technicals, it doesn't mean you can do the same with large positions. And why should banks hire you when they can do lateral hires from other banks and even ivy fresh grads.

So to cut to the chase, I think for any of you out there seriously considering SMB Capital or any other similar prop shops, I suggest you go back to school and wait for a market rebound. Being a trader is tough, don't make it any tougher.

Cheers to the rest of the monkeys out there and beware of pot holes such as these.

your post was very confusing; i assume when you say, "nothing turns out to be better than SMB," you mean, "doing nothing" is better than SMB, as opposed to "there is nothing better than SMB." Anyway, I strongly disagree with you that doing nothing is better.

I meant that going back to school would be better. Apologies if that was confusing but I just wanted to prevent college grads from falling for some of these "scam shops".

so SMB caps daily capital to $25,000 per trader? does it force you to not carry any position over night?

I have enjoyed reading Wall Street Oasis's newsletter. You might want to check it out if you have not already.

Just a few corrections about SMB Capital: 1) A new trader's buying power is not capped at 25k. It is exceedingly higher. 2) It is silly to suggest that a successful prop trader with a demonstrable track record wouldn't be hired by a large hedge fund. We have many friends that have made the transition to established HF's or started their own. 3) Our firm is having our best month. One of our new traders made more last week than he did the previous year as an accountant at one of the Big Four. And there are many better traders at our firm. Instead of reading Grover Lane's (an unknown, unnamed, unverified person on the Internet) comments as fact, I would encourage those who are truly interested in learning how to trade to draw their own conclusions about SMB or any other firm. The best way for a young person to find a firm that is the best fit for you is to try and land an interview. Then draw your own conclusions. During our last interview with us we will invite you to lunch with two traders from our firm. You will get some good free food and can ask them any question you would like. For some working at a big bank is the only worthwhile trading experience. For most a prop trading firm like SMB, where traders get to keep a large percentage of their profits, would be a great place to start their trading careers.

With us you will really learn how to trade. You will not be someone's assistant for two years before you are permitted to trade. On Day 26 after an extensive, demanding and thoughtful training program you will trade live. And SMB (run by active traders with collectively more than two decades of experience) will work with you daily until you become a consistently profitable and well rounded trader. And maybe in a few years you will consider prop trading, like we do, the best job in the world.

Mike Bellafiore
SMB Capital, Partner
www.smbtraining.com
www.smbcap.com
www.smbtraining.com/blog

Mike,

If you are so confident about your training program why would you not structure your program like FNY and offer a salary and a more extensive training program. To me, and I suspect many on this site the fact that you don't pay a salary displays a lack on conviction in your ability to attract top trading talent. While in this market environment I suspect you may be getting folks giving your firm a look that would otherwise never consider SMB it is fairly obvious that the top talent would end up elsewhere at shops that are willing to pay an initial salary. It seems your business model is one that limits your risk. If you are so confident about your training program and you are so confident in your firms decades of trading experience and you are so confident in your ability to select great candidates why not display that confidence through actions rather than words. Structure your program like FNY or some of the other well respected firms out there.

I checked out many proprietary trading company's in New York so far as I trade remotely from NY and LA. I have traded for about 5 years and am very knowledgeable about all these prop shops around here in the city. I decided to sign up with flat iron trading, they are downtown in the NY Financial District. They seemed like the most honest and straight forward group of traders I have come across so far and were very easy to deal with. I was a little hesitant at first being they are a new operation in town, but they seemed better then anything I came across so far in terms of honesty and rates/payouts. I was satisfied with the package they offered me and been with them for a few months now, can't complain. They mentioned they don't provide any in-house training to traders as they are all experienced, but do provide full remote-training to their new traders that trade remotely. I recommend them, think their site is flatirontrading.com

SMB Capital deserves this harsh review. The firm is playing the pop they got from being on wall street warriors. (And subsequently an Article in Trader Daily).

While Mike's right learning how to "daytrade" at any of these prop firms successfully can easily open doors to the finical institutions coveted by most of these forum members (HFs and BBs) The truth of the situation is that if you're a good trader who is consistently profitable you'd wind up taking a loss to trade there. Most HFs and BBs don't pay out nearly as well as these shops do.

Pokerplaya brings up an EXCELLENT point. This is the same type of situation you see at commission-only sales jobs. The better firms in this industry (Trillium, FYNS, Chimera...) all offer small salaries (Trillium) or paid training (FYNS) or draws (Chimera). However, 90% of the industry is not doing this. Why?

Simple. Turn over. Most traders fail. There are tons of fish who want to make it big day trading. The cost is enormous. Plus most firms are getting some sort revenue from the commissions traders generate, ergo more bodies can = to more money.

Here's another important aspect to look into what's the profit split? A key to finding a good firm is actually one that has a BAD profit split.

Hah, I know that is counter intuitive but think about. A firm that lets you keep 90+ % of the money you make has VERY little financial incentive to insure your long term viablity. (SMB Captial, Wasserman Capital, etc..) As apposed to a shop like Trillium or Chimera where you start only keeping 30% of your profits. Clearly the goal at one of these firms is to make you successful.

These guys do sit on the same floor as Trillum. Anyway hope all that info helps.

-Markets

Oh yes, and when your interviewing at any of these shops guys here's a great way to smoke out if the firm is any good: ASK TO SEE THE PNL!For the office, look to see if there is consistency in the numbers or if its a wild roller-coaster ride.