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does anyone have any experience with or any comments about - trade our money - firms?
i have done a little research over the internet and there are around 10 websites that claim to be firms that will provide anyone who can prove they can trade with trading capital and also offer to assume all the risks of trading while splitting any prospective profits.
has anyone had any experience with any of these firms? are any of these firms legitimate? in any case, does anyone know of any alternative way to have access to trading capital in a collaborative association?
thanks, regards.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
This sounds just like normal bank money lending that can be used for trading. I would imagine that just like banks you would have to provide some sort of collateral.
in the last few days i have indeed started some application processes or initiated communication with a number of said firms; in some cases i haven't received any reply and in some others so far it seems like firms are permanently recruiting "prospects" because they then can force them to take courses or buy products of theirs. all they talk about is "webinars", training and their methods. initially their offers seem too good to be true and certainly things are very different once one gets their concrete proposals.
i could maybe put together enough capital to trade one single futures contract by myself. however, i have developed some very nice automated strategies and both risk management and results would be far superior if i was able to monitor and trade up to 16 instruments at once (i have weeks worth of trades on a simulated account to back up this assertion), which would definitely require significantly more capital than what i currently have. we'll see how things go, but if anyone has been down a similar road before, it would definitely be helpful to get their advice.
@maggtrading
This is known as a prop firm. The traditional prop firm was a group of private traders who wanted to start their own trading firm, i.e. like a bank. The arrangements can vary quite a bit. But, basically you see a few models. Stock props were created to help day traders circumvent the PDT rule that required 25k to day trade and offer traders more leverage. They were also designed to help traders skirt some licensing requirements like Series 7. Some of these were known as arcades and were viewed quite negatively.
The arcade model or similar required traders to put up some small amount of capital such as 5k. The firm will claim to back you at 100k or whatever but they don't risk any real money on you because if your account drops below 5k they cut you. Such firms often have a lot of restrictions as well. Many of these firms charge a lot of fees such as desk fee, training fee, etc. They also make money off every trade you make.And then were future prop firms, these were typically firms who accounted for a lot of the volume in a particular contract.
Most of the deals today you will find on the internet today are using either (1) high cost training model or (2) the tryout/gambling model. Here's how they work: the high cost training model requires trader to fork over a big upfront fee for training. If you manage to go live they will set your risk limit at some % of what you payed up front. Say they ask for 20k up front, they might give you back 5k of risk for your actual trading.
The other model is the TST/tryout or gambling model. The way this scheme works is that you pay money for a tryout. You have to hit some pretty difficult performance metrics. The tryout is on the simulator and so that doesn't cost anything for the firm. They know a certain % will pass and certain % will fail. So, all they have to do is set the pass/fail ratio such that the % who fail will pay for the % who pass. Example: tryouts are $200 and your actual risk level if you go live is $2,000. You can pass 10% at break even. The firm can just adjust the % who pass by changing the terms to a level that gives them a guaranteed profit. Plus, they also get a % cut of from the traders that pass and that was payed for by the traders that failed. And, of course, they may also have fees, commission, training, etc as additional money makers. The reason I termed it "gambling model", is that it is very similar to a poker tournament where there is a payout that is some % of the pool of those who enter. In their defense, TST has many defenders and their terms appears to have improved over the last couple years. OneUp is another firm that is going to be going live soon with similar model but with better terms.
There are some other models out there. They might ask you to bring 25k and they'll take 10% of the risk in exchange for say 30% or profits and giving you much more buying power. These models are primarily for automated strategy traders. The other common model is employee model, i.e. you just go to work as a trader. Some of the higher end props might give you a base salary like 35k or something, whatever the minimal is to survive, and give you the opportunity to trade their capital and you get some % back. So, if you do well you might be able to make a living wage.
Alternatives for accessing trading capital, the goal you seek is to leverage your skills/abilities. Toward that end, there are various services that will monitor your real money account with promise of offering of capital like fundseeder. Of course, there is no way to know that such services, not referring to any particular service, are not data mining your trades for reverse engineering, piggy backing, etc.
You could also fund your futures account and track it with intent to get subscribers. The big three in that space are Striker Securities, Robbins World Cup, and Collective2. You could also attempt to form a CTA or seed hedge fund.