Prop Firms
Dll
I'm not a guru in this area, but my little research late last year suggests spreadtrading, arbitrage and local scapling.
Div
One firm I spoke to mentioned £20k for starting capital. Another said one contract/or one lot - of whatever futures contract is being traded - as you prove yourself, they allow you to increase noof contracts - this firm only trade their own funds, you're not allowed to use your own. Hope this helps.
Dll
I'm not a guru in this area, but my little research late last year suggests spreadtrading, arbitrage and local scapling.
Div
One firm I spoke to mentioned £20k for starting capital. Another said one contract/or one lot - of whatever futures contract is being traded - as you prove yourself, they allow you to increase noof contracts - this firm only trade their own funds, you're not allowed to use your own. Hope this helps.
Prop Firms
BBB - 4get the PM.
Actually, the site below gives the details of several proprietary trading firms also known as Trading Bureaux.
http://www.liffe.com/access/how/access/bureaux/index.htm
London Capital Group Ltd was the name of the main firm I spoke to, and they have a proper structured training programme. I also visited MetTraders in Hampstead. They're ok but much smaller with no real structured training programme. Startup with them is about £20K with some £750pcm in seat costs etc.
Hope this helps
S
BBB - 4get the PM.
Actually, the site below gives the details of several proprietary trading firms also known as Trading Bureaux.
http://www.liffe.com/access/how/access/bureaux/index.htm
London Capital Group Ltd was the name of the main firm I spoke to, and they have a proper structured training programme. I also visited MetTraders in Hampstead. They're ok but much smaller with no real structured training programme. Startup with them is about £20K with some £750pcm in seat costs etc.
Hope this helps
S
neil
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TWI
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Trading in London
I currently work out of an office in kent, SE London.
www.tradingconnections.co.uk
Everybody here trades full-time, for themselves. Most are trading Liffe STIR futures but some trade UK/EU equities and there are moves to incorporate US exchanges.
The desk cost is about GBP1500/month. It is worth the cost as the environment is great and working from home would cost me nearly as much once I factor in Trading System, Charting Software, MMS and Telecom costs. If you want reliable exchange access standard DSL via VPN is not reliable enough you really need a min 128k fixed line.
There are several arcade like this throughout London. The important thing to do if looking for somewhere is to compare transaction costs. I have a sliding scale starting at under GBP1/round turn and decreasing to less than 50p.
If you look on the Liffe website at
http://www.liffe.com/access/how/access/bureaux/
you will find a list of current "arcades" where you could work in london.
Good Luck
Regards
Tony
I currently work out of an office in kent, SE London.
www.tradingconnections.co.uk
Everybody here trades full-time, for themselves. Most are trading Liffe STIR futures but some trade UK/EU equities and there are moves to incorporate US exchanges.
The desk cost is about GBP1500/month. It is worth the cost as the environment is great and working from home would cost me nearly as much once I factor in Trading System, Charting Software, MMS and Telecom costs. If you want reliable exchange access standard DSL via VPN is not reliable enough you really need a min 128k fixed line.
There are several arcade like this throughout London. The important thing to do if looking for somewhere is to compare transaction costs. I have a sliding scale starting at under GBP1/round turn and decreasing to less than 50p.
If you look on the Liffe website at
http://www.liffe.com/access/how/access/bureaux/
you will find a list of current "arcades" where you could work in london.
Good Luck
Regards
Tony
Trading Bureaux
Just wondering (please, I do not mean to be at all cynical), all these bureaus seem to be run by Ex-Liffe locals and they are no doubt responsible for a huge volume of trades on the exchanges at present. Also, their trading often mostly follows the same patterns as they use similiar strategies(scalping, spreads etc).
Floor 'local' or 'ex-local' usually means a licence to print uknowot and since trading is a zero sum game, who are they all 'skimming money' off to earn their regular profits?
Just wondering (please, I do not mean to be at all cynical), all these bureaus seem to be run by Ex-Liffe locals and they are no doubt responsible for a huge volume of trades on the exchanges at present. Also, their trading often mostly follows the same patterns as they use similiar strategies(scalping, spreads etc).
Floor 'local' or 'ex-local' usually means a licence to print uknowot and since trading is a zero sum game, who are they all 'skimming money' off to earn their regular profits?
twalker
£1500 pcm seems quite high for a seat for a fixed monthly cost. Do you pay this regardless of volume and does it include/exclude commissions etc?
Of course, don't know how much you make against this per month so it may actually be very reasonable.
£1500 pcm seems quite high for a seat for a fixed monthly cost. Do you pay this regardless of volume and does it include/exclude commissions etc?
Of course, don't know how much you make against this per month so it may actually be very reasonable.
TWI
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Money
Money comes from the paper which enters the market and does not mind crossing the bid/offer spread. That spread is our edge. Generally the position traders do not mind giving away some cream when they have volume to do, they just smack it.
It is true that a lot of the arcades were started by x-locals but they now consist of a wide cross section of people. It generally takes people about 6 months to get up to speed if they have little or no trading experience so anybody who is thinking of going this way better have that buffer unless they are sponsored. Most arcades make enough money taking a cut on the transaction costs, particularly if they are over GBP1/rt so in my mind charging % of PnL is really taking the piss.
I was trained and used to trade for a US Multinational which was a very different style from this. I do however believe that for personal account trading this is the most effective.
Maybe I better change my name to something anionymous before I start ranting.
All best
T/.
Money comes from the paper which enters the market and does not mind crossing the bid/offer spread. That spread is our edge. Generally the position traders do not mind giving away some cream when they have volume to do, they just smack it.
It is true that a lot of the arcades were started by x-locals but they now consist of a wide cross section of people. It generally takes people about 6 months to get up to speed if they have little or no trading experience so anybody who is thinking of going this way better have that buffer unless they are sponsored. Most arcades make enough money taking a cut on the transaction costs, particularly if they are over GBP1/rt so in my mind charging % of PnL is really taking the piss.
I was trained and used to trade for a US Multinational which was a very different style from this. I do however believe that for personal account trading this is the most effective.
Maybe I better change my name to something anionymous before I start ranting.
All best
T/.
TWI
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Costs
The arcades make far more out of a cut of the transaction fees than the desk fee.
The actual costs split like this. If I were working from Home
Trading Paltform (TT/Easyscreen etc.) ~500-1000/mnth
CQG ~500/mnth
MMS analysis ~300/mnth
Telecom fixed Line (128k) ~450/mnth
So you see that the desk fee is not too bad.
The nature of this trading style however is one of volume so when doing in excess of 10k rt/mnth then GBP1/rt adds up. Some people here do hundreds of thousands of rt/month.
The arcades make far more out of a cut of the transaction fees than the desk fee.
The actual costs split like this. If I were working from Home
Trading Paltform (TT/Easyscreen etc.) ~500-1000/mnth
CQG ~500/mnth
MMS analysis ~300/mnth
Telecom fixed Line (128k) ~450/mnth
So you see that the desk fee is not too bad.
The nature of this trading style however is one of volume so when doing in excess of 10k rt/mnth then GBP1/rt adds up. Some people here do hundreds of thousands of rt/month.
Hi Twalkertwalker said:
Do you have any details about what style of trading they will treach? Will they inflict a strict set of rules and make them trade very cautiously at first? will they teach them to skim? What rough figure of return are they looking at getting back from the grads?
Thanks in advance
TWI
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To be honest I do not know why CQG is standard. It is a great charting package however and maybe they have a good sales team.
Personally I prefer Tradestation but those idiots cut off their EU customers when they made the 3rd party data import redundant and they do not supply EU exchange data themselves. Of course there is Tradestation 2000i which does allow this but they will not develop that any further.
I also use Futuresource which is cheaper and is fine for general charting stuff but not as good as CQG for analysis and systems.
As for MMS this is just an information service and provide analysis on a lot of the markets. It is pretty good and I think a lot of people follow their technicals. It is great for getting down key levels first thing in the morning. Drawback is that it is not cheap. I think you can sign up for a free trial at
http://www.informagm.com/
Personally I prefer Tradestation but those idiots cut off their EU customers when they made the 3rd party data import redundant and they do not supply EU exchange data themselves. Of course there is Tradestation 2000i which does allow this but they will not develop that any further.
I also use Futuresource which is cheaper and is fine for general charting stuff but not as good as CQG for analysis and systems.
As for MMS this is just an information service and provide analysis on a lot of the markets. It is pretty good and I think a lot of people follow their technicals. It is great for getting down key levels first thing in the morning. Drawback is that it is not cheap. I think you can sign up for a free trial at
http://www.informagm.com/
TWI
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I do not have details of the Zen programme, but I believe they already have recruited some employees. I do not know how or exactly what they will teach them to trade but I would imagine it will be something like the Bund/Bobl/Schatz spread on Eurex. It will be a gradual process I imagine where the volume limits will be increased as they get better and more competent. I have no idea what they expect as a return. I do not have anything to do with Zen, I just know the a couple of people there.
The return that traders make in the arcades varies wildly. In the first 6 months it is unlikely many people will do better than cover cost. After a year things generally get a lot better. I do know people who make many thousands every day the majority of people make a good living. I would be clear however that it is not an easy way to riches. Many of us often work 6:30am to 6pm. You have to put plenty of time in to make a success of this.
The return that traders make in the arcades varies wildly. In the first 6 months it is unlikely many people will do better than cover cost. After a year things generally get a lot better. I do know people who make many thousands every day the majority of people make a good living. I would be clear however that it is not an easy way to riches. Many of us often work 6:30am to 6pm. You have to put plenty of time in to make a success of this.