Traders - Millions by the minute

toshj said:
But the monies paid by the trainees will cover part of their day-to-day running costs of the firm.

It's a good way of adding a bit of security, but not exactly great for their reputation. I imagine their attrition rate of people that go full time must be over 80%.
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I think you may be being a bit optimistic... if they need money from trainees to cover costs then it wouldn't seem like their trading business actually makes much money if at all...

Reality is that these sorts of operations aren't as feasible these days anyway - as far as discretionary trading in futures is concerned there are far far fewer people doing it now compared with 10 years ago - the established firms in this area make most of their money from their clearing/brokerage side... some have systematic trading teams too or fund them/rent office/desk space to them in addition to clearing their trades - the grad programs have mostly either been scrapped or massively scaled back - charging a fee to learn some technical analysis, get taught about economic releases and go on a sim for a bit is utter BS...

You can replicate that experience for free in your bedroom - give CQG a ring and ask for a free trial... its unlikely to get you very far, you're very very unlikely to find an edge staring at charts and taking a few directional punts on the S&P.
 
delta0 said:
Considering they were training an ex criminal who would never be allowed near anyone else's money they aren't looking for employees.
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technically it doesn't matter - you don't need to be an approved person/be on the FSA register if you're just trading the company's money... though yes in reality a lot of firms would probably have an issue with it regardless as other parts of their business are regulated and compliance would likely get a bit upset... particularly as the guy in question was found guilty of a financial/insurance fraud...
 
just an update, i was at the seminar in there conference room. Not on the trade floor. It was fairly busy with a lot of people. I did not really understand what they were trying to achieve with the sale of the courses as they take 60% of all the earning's for the 3 people that make it through stage 2 and stage 3 of the course. I don't think it is for me. It is just better to understand your own limits and adverse to Risk..
 
dowie said:
technically it doesn't matter - you don't need to be an approved person/be on the FSA register if you're just trading the company's money... though yes in reality a lot of firms would probably have an issue with it regardless as other parts of their business are regulated and compliance would likely get a bit upset... particularly as the guy in question was found guilty of a financial/insurance fraud...
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Didn't realise they could trade with the companies money. He seemed only interested in the trading for himself.
 
Saw the first show, thought it was alright. I've spent some time working on a trading floor, such a high pressure environment and one I probably couldn't do. I get far too distracted by my phone throughout the day!
 
nam said:
just an update, i was at the seminar in there conference room. Not on the trade floor. It was fairly busy with a lot of people. I did not really understand what they were trying to achieve with the sale of the courses as they take 60% of all the earning's for the 3 people that make it through stage 2 and stage 3 of the course. I don't think it is for me. It is just better to understand your own limits and adverse to Risk..
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interesting - so they decide up front that only 3 people will be taken on after the course anyway - how much is the course and how many people do they have on each course to start with?
 
dowie said:
I think you may be being a bit optimistic... if they need money from trainees to cover costs then it wouldn't seem like their trading business actually makes much money if at all...

Reality is that these sorts of operations aren't as feasible these days anyway - as far as discretionary trading in futures is concerned there are far far fewer people doing it now compared with 10 years ago - the established firms in this area make most of their money from their clearing/brokerage side... some have systematic trading teams too or fund them/rent office/desk space to them in addition to clearing their trades - the grad programs have mostly either been scrapped or massively scaled back - charging a fee to learn some technical analysis, get taught about economic releases and go on a sim for a bit is utter BS...

You can replicate that experience for free in your bedroom - give CQG a ring and ask for a free trial... its unlikely to get you very far, you're very very unlikely to find an edge staring at charts and taking a few directional punts on the S&P.
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I don't think they need money to cover costs, but if they can educate the ignorant whilst charging a fee for it, they might as well. Bloomberg terminals, data feeds, software, it all adds up, so why not have the trainees pay for it? There are plenty of out of work finance professionals trading their own account at home and not enjoying it, so Amplify have created a model which is basically the two MDs day trading whilst having their costs covered. If any of their traders makes any money, then I imagine the two at the top will will take most of it.

The old futures trading shops are still around - Goldenberg Heymeyer, Mako, etc. - although they've tried to rebrand themselves as systematic trading platforms, but they're still the same old thing. It's a system that benefits the owners of the firm (and therefore the firms are feasible), but virtually none of the employees will get anything out of it (therefore not feasible for them) - it depends on which angle you're looking at it from. OSTC seem to have the right approach in setting up on the coast, and therefore sidestepping the London rental costs.

These finance MSc grads that the likes of Amplify pick up are much better off getting jobs in middle- and back-office, understanding the basics of how the market works, earning a bit of cash, and just trading their own account in their spare time. Other than the owners/founders of the futures trading shops, none of their actual traders will make any decent money.
 
toshj said:
I don't think they need money to cover costs, but if they can educate the ignorant whilst charging a fee for it, they might as well. Bloomberg terminals, data feeds, software, it all adds up, so why not have the trainees pay for it?
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Because it really doesn't add up - can you see a Bloomberg terminal anywhere? Of course not... they're using CQG - the sim is free, they don't require any infrastructure as they offer an ASP model - no need for them to host infrastructure themselves, run software on their own servers etc... They just need office space, some desks/computer terminals and a network. It almost seems like a cargo cult version of a proprietary trading firm. Its more likely the 'training fees' do a bit more than just cover costs - its quite plausible the 'training fees' are the main source of revenue - especially if they get a bunch of people to pay them then only let 3 of them go live trading 1 lot.

The old futures trading shops are still around - Goldenberg Heymeyer, Mako, etc. - although they've tried to rebrand themselves as systematic trading platforms, but they're still the same old thing.
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I didn't say the firms weren't around I'm talking about the traders, the locals there are far far fewer people doing it and for good reason. The likes of Kyte, Marex etc.. make their money from clearing - the days of getting grads in, funding them and letting them loose on the Bund etc.. are just not feasible any more.

These finance MSc grads that the likes of Amplify pick up are much better off getting jobs in middle- and back-office, understanding the basics of how the market works, earning a bit of cash, and just trading their own account in their spare time. Other than the owners/founders of the futures trading shops, none of their actual traders will make any decent money.
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they used to - doing it 10 years ago was feasible - people were making six figure incomes from trading STIRS using simple mean reversion type strategies... albeit on a very discretionary - oh it looks like the spread has gone high enough time to short it, sort of way...

Options market making firms are a feasible path to take these days still... I don't see what you're likely to learn in any back office or in most middle office roles.
 
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dowie said:
Options market making firms are a feasibly path to take these days still... I don't see what you're likely to learn in any back office or in most middle office roles.
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I simply meant that if you're a finance grad (without a hope of getting into front office) and have some hard on for the world of trading, you're much better off earning a solid living in middle- back-office and trading your own account in your spare time, than paying fees to learn how to "trade" by two guys who clearly are using the money to run the firm.
 
toshj said:
I simply meant that if you're a finance grad (without a hope of getting into front office) and have some hard on for the world of trading, you're much better off earning a solid living in middle- back-office and trading your own account in your spare time, than paying fees to learn how to "trade" by two guys who clearly are using the money to run the firm.
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Such obvious scammers. What's 3 months run at £6k?
 
looks like part two is on at 9pm tonight... could be interesting... though might well just be a bunch of chumps with spread betting accounts taking directional punts because.... (insert some nonsense technical analysis explanation).

Would be interesting if they interview anyone like the guy on Reddit who did high frequency market making from home.
 
I've invested in a couple of companies before and made quite large returns. I couldn't do this would drive me mental.

If anyone does want to try their hand at it there's a couple of real time trading apps that give you fake cash to play with. Its quite fun to earn a few hundred thousand only to loose it all in a stupid bid that made sense at the time lol.
 
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Stock wars(ios only I think) was the one I used its changed name since I had it but looks the same.

Other more recent one is trade hero mobile(ios/android).
 
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