Is working at a Canadian Prop trading company (without finance background) a good idea?
The prop trading company I visited today call themselves market makers, should I risk and join them?
To add more details to my question, I have no background in finance or trading because i am a science graduate. I was invited to a trading company today with a couple of people for an information session about their company. Essentially, we are trained for 6 months, then after that, we go live in trading. The company benefits from us via commissions and desk fees. My career goal is IB, but I find the trading experience to be very engaging and rewarding. So my question, is it worth entering their program and not making much money for a year long? how will this experience benefit me if my ultimate goal is IB? and are prop trading companies really just willing to train people for 6 months and simply make commissions and desk fees as their revenue source? Note that they didn't call themselves "prop trading company X", they simply are called "X Trading".
I would highly appreciate if you can provide me with information about prop trading companies and whether or not they are suitable for career progression for individuals looking to break in IB?
Prop trading and market making can be a great career choice at the right firm, but isn't so great if you're trying to break into IB.
It is not worth the risk in Canada.
We need more details to understand whether this is a good opportunity or not. How are you compensated, both during the training period and after when you trade a live account. Is it a draw against future earnings? Do you have to put up capital? If you do, that is usually a red flag that they are mostly concerned with charging commissions to part you and your money.
More generally, what would you be making a market in? How much churn have they had in recent years with new hires?
Iv added more info as a comment above. But essentially, they train us for 6 months with experts, we are not expected to pay anything for training (ofc we would go through interview process that determines who gets the position and who doesnt). After 6 months, we would go live and start trading in the market (not sure if the US only or the Canadian). During the time we trade live, we would pay them $1500 per month for desk space and they will also take comission (trading fees). He metioned that the salary ranges greatly and largerly depends on how good of a trader we are.
My only issue is, it doesnt make sense to me that they will put blood and sweat in training us for 6 months and expect nothing. I could simply benefit from their training and use my own platform to trade without having to pay them comission. That is what giving me red flags.
Mostly this sounds like a bad deal. Are they paying you a salary while you train? Are they also providing captial to you once you start to trade?
No salary during the training period. The capital I believe is provided.
I guess no salary during training is ok, as long as they are putting up all the capital once you trade. Make sure this is crystal clear though. What happens if your equity goes negative once you start trading? If you're paying them for a seat and also providing the equity capital (they are just providing leverage), then they better have a damn good technology stack behind you to make sure that there is value in all the fees they are squeezing out. More likely they are just trying to make sure you are trained well enough not to blow up and put the firm at risk, while they churn you for your seat fees + trade commissions.
Is this Maverick Trading? If so run the other wayyyyyyyyyy.
I think i know the firm you're talking about, and it sounds sketchy af. There are other opportunities out for you. Network hard and focus on these opportunities in Toronto:
-> search funds -> boutique IBs -> boutique PEs
These are fairly easy to get here, even with a low GPA. Send cold emails to ppl that have/had worked here. I've personally done this, and it works.
Once you get the experience, you can lateral to IB. TBH you're better of spending that 6months networking, than "learning" about prop trading. I had an interview with these guys, absolutely garbage - i hung up on them during the phone call.
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