current prop trader looking for advice
I am currently entering my 13th month as a U.S. listed equities and options trader at a well-regarded prop firm, trading firm money with no money up (think of a business model similar to Shoenfeld/Opus, but with 0 training salary, all P&L from day 1). The training program we got for the first 4 months was pretty generalized and actually focused on strategies from years past. I am currently about 25k in the hole and I am looking for alternatives with an increasing vigor. I am aware that several WSO members have used the experience at a legit prop firm as a stepping stone to greener pastures, and the purpose of this post is to gain some insight from those people. For some academic background info, I have a 2.9 undergrad GPA with a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from a competitive, non-target school. I have one web class, which I am currently taking, to complete an M.S. in Management with a 3.5 GPA in that degree, from the same school as my undergrad degree. With that said, I would like to know from the guys who went a similar route, how you were able to use your prop firm experience to leverage your resume and personal story. Obviously having been net negative for most of the time is definitely not a selling point, but I do feel as though I have learned a lot as we have a significant amount of freedom to explore different styles (we can hold overnight or longer term, not strictly intra-day trading). I guess the main question I'm trying to ask is that when you referenced your previous prop firm experiences, were interviewers only focused on P&L or more so on your experiences and overall market/trading insights that you gained while prop trading?
-tbryce7085
Were you though mostly daytrading strategies ?
MrFuture,
For the most part, yea, but I had some nice wins on call spreads back when RIG, APC, and MON were pretty beaten up and those were on average a week to 2 weeks in duration. Overall we are trained as contrarians , but more and more I'm trying to force myself to go with the trend, which I view as somewhat harder due, in my opinion, to entries, take profits and stop losses being more ambiguous than a mean reversion style based on volume/price spikes and moving averages.
-Bryce
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