NYC Proprietary Trading Firms
I'm currently a corporate lawyer in NYC with an expertise in securities regulation, compliance and white collar crime (mostly cases concerning alleged market manipulation and insider trading). For the last few years, I have been trading equity options and futures throughout the day, almost every trading day (mostly indexes, commodities and currencies because of work conflicts). I've gotten to the point where I am cautiously confident, making consistent profits and I am much more interested in trading than my current position. I literally spend all of my free time (other than with the misses) studying Steidlmayer, Dalton, Murphy and Nison, etc.
I was wondering if any of you could provide me with some information on proprietary trading firms that would allow me to trade options and futures. I would also appreciate any references describing the "what to knows" about these places. I have no issue making a capital contribution or anything like that. I just want to have enough information to allow me to make a calculated decision to walk away from $300k+/yr to trade. I know it would be risky but I would rather do something I'm passionate about and end up with no money than make some money working 100 hour, seven day weeks, at a job that bores me (but I get that the grass is always greener). Any insight would be appreciated.
I've read about T3 but the reviews, on balance, seem to be pretty negative. It also seems like T3 is limited to trading equities but I could be wrong.
My apologies in advance if I posted this in the wrong area. Thanks again.
The odds of you finding equivalent success in trading is slim to none, especially once your livelihood depends on it. You should be fulfilled with that aspect of your life (career) especially if you have the freedom to trade on the side.
Stop looking at "firms" that are effectively scams.
Thanks. You're probably right. I'm just trying to learn enough so that I can come to the same conclusion and stop having the thought linger in my mind that this could be a potential career move. Why would you say that these places are scams - they probably are, I just have absolutely no idea.
The gist of it is, some "firms'" business model is built around collecting fees from you and shifting their risk onto you. They'll charge for their "education", collecting fees on your transactions and they push you to trade more... Others have you put up your money and give you leverage with theirs, but you take the losses and they take a huge cut of the upside if you have any. Nasty places.
I've discussed this before, though it was to some prospective college kids looking to forgo school in order to trade. Imagine 5-10 years down the road if you are only making OK money, not making money or even losing money. It gets to be a bleak picture pretty fast. As I stated above, the game changes when your sole income depends on your results.
Not to mention, if you're already consistently profitable, there is no reason you should change what you're doing. Take the S&P 500 emini for instance, 1pt on one contract is $50. If you can average 5-10pts per contract per week, you're doing very well; on 5 contracts that's $1,250-2,500 per week, but the product is so liquid you could easily (in time) scale up to 50 or even 120 contracts. Obviously, I'm not suggesting you just put on a huge position I'm just pointing out that so long as you're consistent you can build up to a point where it's worth your while and you don't have to give up your current salary or job security to do it.
As far as interest goes, trading is mundane, repetitious, tedious and boring as hell. If you don't think so, you haven't been trading long enough yet. Don't take this the wrong way, but I wonder why people who have made millions in other endeavors feel the need to give it away trying to learn how to trade. I call it being overcapitalized. More money than knowledge. Food for thought.
Listen to archervice... you have a fine life and going down the prop trading route is one way to quickly ruin the life you have right now
Arch is right, stay away. Stay in the retail market and enjoy the success you have been finding part-time doing your own thing. If one day you TRULY wanted to take trading to another level, you'd be far better off on your own with a self-funded account then joining one of these borderline useless firms that will churn you in and out in less than 12 months.
TradingJD -- In a similar situation and weighing my options as well. Did you ever make the move? If not, why not?
People who call Prop trading firms scams are sore losers. The essence of prop trading or an arcade is to give you leverage to trade. You can make hella money if u're ahead of the game. You can end up being in underwear below the bridge if u can't allocate your risks.
It's just an opportunity for skilled ppl. Don't talk shit if you didn't make it
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