Advice needed! I´m in a pretty confussing situation!

[eXWoLL_]

Hello everyone, this is my first thread at this forum, so forgive me that it is a "help wanted" one :cheesy:...

Would you give an advice in the following situation please?:

I´m trying to find a way back to trading after a little more than 1.5 years out of the business due to time conflicts with my college. Now that I had finished my education, I found myself in a pretty bad situation, because I can´t find a good prop firm for the following reasons:

1. I´m neither a US citizen or US resident. I´m living in Bolivia right now, and love this place, and I can only permit myself a couple of visits to US trading offices if there is a serious reason to do that. The good firms require to be present all the time in their trading floor;

2. There is no prop firm in this country, neither another traders to form a group with to trade with a decent firm (a couple of them gave me this requirement);

3. I traded 3 years with an awful scam prop during my college education (payout were only 25%, commission 0.6/100, horrible training), but I resisted there because I had enough resources to live without worrying about anything, and I needed for a place where I could learn in real-time what is trading about . So I keep myself afloat all that time without losing money, even had a decent profit from time to time. But in the end they just changed the rules,I couldn´t continue to develope my trading strategy with the new stupid rules, so I decided to leave and finish my formal education. And the must funny thing, is that I didn´t take any trading record with myself!(I´m stupid, I know, but the deal is done). For that reason, I´m a 0 out here, with no records, no nothing, and it´s really difficult to find a decent prop that would accept me for trading remote under that conditions, I understand them, I would do the same thing....

Now, I really wanna trade again, I´d tried to work this year in the sphere of my degree, but it is not the same, the money is good, but, i don´t like it at all.

I only have 10k to invest in trading. 5k for a deposit (if I should put my money in there), 1-2k to buy decent hardware, and 3k to sustain myself for the first months, pay for the connection, etc. (Life expenses here are very low, I can live with 400$/month very well, including the rent payment , the only expensive thing would be a good Internet connection)

But researching through the prop firms, it is really tricky to find a prop that isn´t a scam and have decent conditions to work.

Maverick from ET suggested me forgot about the small firms that ask for a deposit, and move to another country where I could find a decent prop, like Panama, where I could trade from a trading floor and have good traders around to learn "real" stuff.

Another guy suggested to look among the European prop. firms, because almost all of them trade futures and is less probable to find a scam than in the equities prop firms, and it would be more cheaper to trade there.

I´m really confused right now... as far as I can see, I have this variables:

1. Start with my plan, trade with my money (if I find a decent prop) for some time, get a trading record and then try again with the big props in US;
2. Do as Maverick advised. I don´t need a visa for 3 months in Panama, so I could take a shot, and try there, using my capital to sustain myself for the time that i stay there. But I don´t know right now what are the life expenses there, and if it would be enough a couple of thousand $ to live for 3 months at the worst case scenario;
3. Try with European prop. But, I´d never traded derivatives,and I suspect that the scenario with the US props would repeat this time too.
4. Try with European prop, with my money, trading e-mini´s. But starting from 0, learning futures, etc.

What would you advice me in this case?.

Best regards,

eXWoLL_

 

[TheBramble]

Have you considered England? It's the new Land of Opportunity. Easy to get into. Easy to stay. No tax if you do it right.

But with your record (or more importantly lack of) no bona fide prop firm will touch you I suspect, so you'll need to find one of the East European outfits that currently works in the grey. You'll need to switch every few months and keep your wits about you and skip at the first sign of heat.

Or sign on for benefits and use your capital and trade it up on an independent basis. There are plenty of low-level SBs that'll take you on with virtually non-existent personal background.

If you're as good as you think you'll be winging it in no time and you'll forget why you ever wanted to prop in the first place.



edit|: Plus your current geographical location puts you in a position to do little amateur import/export. If you get away with it you’ll be off to a flying start stake-wise.

 

[forker]

Imports and exports isn't as simple as 123. You need to know the different regulations associated to each country, taxes, logistics, and you need to advertise which doesn't come cheap. In a nutshell it's a highly competitive business that requires a good amount of knowledge, experience, and time before profit can be realised. Anyone thinking they can just locate to a poor country and setup an export business without significant hurdles in all the related facets is naive and destined for failure.

 

[TheBramble]

I don't think you understood.

 

[eXWoLL_]

Nor did I... (I´ll not traffic cocaine btw , for the moment... )

I´ll try England, a guy from ET adviced me the same, I´m going to inquire today with them.

The problem with the Easter Europe shops, is that their fees are pretty high (like 0.6-1/100 shares and they keep a % of my profits, even if I put my money in play), and the other thing, is that in most of EE countries is illegal to trade foreign exchanges, and the shops can get closed without any previous advice :S (World Capital Investents as an example, they did work in US, Russia and Ukraine, and they were shut with some charges of money laundering). But I´ll keep searching, maybe I´ll find some "decent" prop out there.

 

[DashRiprock]

marching powder innit

 

[nicktids]

Can't you call up the old trading house and get your trading record from file. They must still have it.

Then take this to the UK.

Or even show your bank statements showing you did actually get paid from this company but you don't have the records of the transactions and explain your style of trading how you like to trade. Even start now and run a dummy fund or put your 5k in the market with a firm and trade small. with 5k you can still leverage nicely and if you show some nice returns then thats a good starting point to go to the prop house with.

 

[eXWoLL_]

I traded trough a shady Russian prop , they paid us in the office without any legal backup.....
I tried, but the broker files, as they said, are automatically deleted after a year of storage :/, I just think that they didn't want to give them to me.....

That is what my original plan is. But it's hard to find a decent small firm... until now, the only ones that looked good (from my actual position only) are: Title Trading (Canada), Capital Traders Group (US) and JC Trading (US). They ask for a 2-5k deposit with good leverage and good fees 0.2-0.4$/1000 shares, with 70-90% payout.

But I can't find any fact about any of them, only opinions, nothing else :S. But if I can't find anything else, I suppose that one of them will be my choise...

 

[natureboy]

Nor did I... (I´ll not traffic cocaine btw , for the moment... )

Lol