Paid to Trade

Hey Reid, another Swift story. You have endurance, though you dont know how to cut your losses. The market doesnt work "Swifts Way" nowadays, may I suggest Marcel Prousts "Swanns Way" instead, if you want a longwinded sappy story.

You could jump into futures trading- a la Refco in Montreal, paid training.

You could apply to RBC but they are arrogant pricks, and putting "Swift-it" on a resume wont work.

Hmmmm.... Im thinking for you, Im thinking....

Trade real prop somewhere else yourself......

ok ok I know, how bout you get a skilled trade and buy high performance mutal funds...

front street, sprott. ... thats all you need to know to succeed in life

 

Sprott's by far the smartest guy on the street, if he was really ambitious he'd make a killin in the states, it's unfortunate that CAnada doesn't have the opportunities that NY or Chicago have.

The big-5 have varying degrees of prop divisions, but most give it no credence, there's too little money and it conflicts with their sell-side clients, so if there's a choice between the two they'll go with the safe bet, no Goldman ambitions amongst the "Trusts" (only Canadians know what i'm talkin bout)

 

If you are talking to this Reid, man I do not have the vaguest idea what you are talking about.
What is "Swift".
I cut my losses with a tight stop loss.
I do not trade futures, I trade stocks, only.
Marcel Prousts? Who is that?
I do not trade prop, and do not intend to.
The only trade I have is trading stocks.
And what language do you speak, if I may ask. I know the words are English. But, that's all I can tell.
If you want to make some money, send me a PM.

 

thank you for the positive words malaka...

unfortunately, my story is not that great.... I wished I had figured this right out of college but it took me almost 5 years to come to my senses...

I was one of those late 90's bubble traders... trading between classes and making almost as much money as my dad was every month who has been working for 20 years and has an MBA from Kellogg... so when recruiting time came around, I scoffed at those lemmings going to their career fairs and got "lazy" and stayed in my apt daytrading... After graduating, I went to trade at a prop and was an instant success... I bought a new BMW (cash), a condo in SF, travelling and was partying like a rapper... got myself a group for overides and didn't save a dime... Then the market changed and I began to struggle, lost my group and my trading stake... borrowed another 25k and lost 60% of that too... decided to "quit" trading as a career in late 2003 and was in debt about 35k... I was lost for about 6 mos feeling sorry for myself, doing temp work and making wages that a high school grad could be making because I had no motivation to work on my resume, network and still wanted to watch the market everyday...Everytime I tried to get back in I started to trade either scared or swung for the fences, either way I struck out... Finally, I got my sh#t together and started to job hunt for real... I caught a break and have been working as a Power Trader for a Texas NRG company since Nov 2004.... I have since paid off all my debts and saved about 25k in a ING direct account.... I have gained confidence, developed my own system and took the emotions out of the game because I don't HAVE to make money anymore, tossed my ego and just trade what I see and not what I think... They say not to fix something that ain't broke which is how I feel my life is right now but once i get that ING savings account to 250k, I want to go back to trading as a career because that's my passion ... I'll try to keep you all updated if anyone cares... =)
I know how a lot of you traders feel... it's a great "job" but it's a difficult one... I admire those who have succeeded without going thru what I have gone thru but for those who have or are... there are ways out...so keep ur head up and continue to work hard...and keep ur options open

THATS MY STORY!!
=)

 

great story Pongu. keep us updated. is it possible to trade power with your own account? I am curious about that because it was mentioned in another thread. how does trading power work?

 

Thank you

As far as power trading your own account goes, I believe it is quite difficult in the hourly market which is where my experience is... for a few reasons... of course, there is day-ahead and term deals which I have very little knowledge of (only been in the industry 9 mo's)

1) most counterparties actually require the physical delivery of the Mws... so unless you have a turbine in your back yard that makes you limited to who you can trade with...

2) Liquidity: For the most part, the hourly market is very illiquid except in California and the PJM control area in the East

3) Cost of Data: To get the information needed to make informed trading decisions is not cheap... it is not like stocks where a tradestation charting account only costs like 100/mo or go online and get charts for free at bigcharts...

But I think you're right, I've heard people who trade power financially rather than physcially mainly in PJM through ICE (www.theice.com) and make decent money.. very volatile and fast moving market... I'm just not aware of exactly how to set it up...

Sorry

 

wow, new ball game to me there. hopefully, you can get the info to trade it for yourself. good luck. I'll look into it more myself.

 

Hey Reid,

Haha, what can I say, 6 weeks straight of working 10 hour days and 4 beers will do that to you. I assumed that smoothsmooth was one of many Swifttrade ex-traders that didnt make it. You asked for a paid training gig. The only one I know of in Canada is Refco. They apparently also trade single stock futures (not sure how liquid this market is)


As for the Swift- Swann thing is refering to a book whom the author is both dead and french from way back. On second thought, its not really relevant. Best part is I woke up fine for work at 5am this morning.

 

I did not ask for "a paid training gig". I am not looking for any kind of employment. I do not desire to be employed by anyone. Go back and read my posts again.

 

Wow!

First of all I’d like to thank you all for responding to my thread! I was just looking for some ideas right now & you guys were generous enough to come through – thanks!

I’ve been trying to bust some ass to get all must stuff in order (resumes references etc.etc) so I’m sorry about the tardy reply. Here’s some Q & A

The prop firm only gave me Nasdaq entitlements. I’m curious to what extent that experience can be leveraged to trade other markets?

I graduated with my MBA in ’01 & my CFA III in ’02. At that time it didn’t seem like buy-side firms were hiring at all (it didn’t seem like anyone was hiring). I didn’t want to go back to marketing mutual funds, so I took jobs outside of the industry. Several months ago I’ve had opportunities to informally speak to a couple gentlemen – basically, experience seems to be the major impediment right now

I am nowhere near attractive enough to garner decent tips bartending. My own mother thinks I’m rather ugly. NYSEscalpa makes a good point as well being tired trading – As well I needed to do extensive work outside of market hours to improve my trading.

I got my MBA from Schulich.. Just by looking the number of opportunities outside of Toronto though – I will definitely have to consider broadening my geographic horizons. Thanks for the heads up Rufus.

Sulli – if this polyphasic sleeping crap works. I will regard you as my hero – send me your address & I will send you a bouquet of flowers.

Mr. Chan “The experience you have at the prop firm is probably the "worst" thing that happened to you” – oh oh!! That’s not good – that’s not good at all. From the perspective of a potential employer, would it be a cultural difference or would they simply regard as the experience as completely irrelevant? Is it literally the “worst” thing that I can put on a resume? Can it be swung anyways – it certainly takes initiative to trade prop on your own with no training for no pay doesn’t it? I’m not a heretic am I? I will repent!!! I’m sorry!

Rufus, good point re: working with the best minds. The way I see it – trading is like learning a language. Sure you can sit there & learn how to conjugate verbs & learn some obscure phrases but your fluency is limited until you’re in the environment. I would imagine if you’re sitting around traders that are far better than you – your learning curve should turn upwards dramatically. There’s an adage about that that I can’t recall so it must mean that its true. I wouldn’t even mind a position where I’m making photocopies so long as I’m in the environment – you’re bound to pick up something.

Limitdown, you really seem to be keen on this teaching thing.

Hey Pongu, great job – I completely understand where you’re coming from (minus the BMW – but I do recall the temp work) what are you trading for yourself?
Psytrade – thanks for thinking of me while you’re drinking. I’m completely flattered. You have an incredible knack of the English language. Would you mind if I PM you with Q’s?

Anyways – I gotta get back to work …. Jeez

Thanks for all your contributions – you guys are the darn sweetest.

Cheers,

Smooth