If trading success got me a hot surfing babe then I'd say it was a worthwhile career move! She'd need to have a good personality as well though...
As I understand it less than 1% of applicants get accepted to be trained and backed by the elite prop houses such as Futex. Trading is a difficult business, not just in learning to understand the markets, but in the amount of effort and perseverance required to succeed. You need to be able to take a beating and still jump out of bed and rush in to prep for the open the next day with the enthusiasm of a spring bunny. Would you back anyone by funding their training, education, compliance certification, data feeds, news wires, trading platform costs, margin requirements, access to economic research, coaching and trading losses in the early days unless you were absolutely convinced of their suitability in terms of learning aptitude, innate intelligence, numerical ability, economic understanding, psychological profile, determination and desire?
I do this for a living and I say 'NO'!
Remember these are not small sums of money we're talking about here. If there are doubts over your suitability on any of these scores it's likely you won't make the cut as there are no shortage of applicants for such privileged positions. It's an overstated truism that any time you sit down to trade you can, quite literally, make silly amounts of money. If you've got the balls, and you've paid your dues, and you know what you're doing. The only way to get there is with a serious amount of screen time and with some expert guidance from those who've already been through it. To think otherwise is a misconception.
Training costs from reputable companies can be on the steep side, but deservedly so - they have something of real value to offer. You may think you'd be better off going for a bargain option, doing your own research and sticking the remainder in a trading account. The most likely outcome of this, however, is that you get trained inadequately, lose your cash and are back at square one none the wiser for the experience. There are many, many offerings on the trader training front these days, but quality varies wildly. An obvious rule of thumb when selecting a training provider is their track record of success (yes, testimonials can be convincing from recent course graduates, but have they actually made money from the markets yet?). I would say that training given by an established proprietary trading house is naturally going to be a cut above the rest. Think of all the big traders that came through Refco such as Lawrie Inman. Since we're talking about Futex, think about Bradley Young who featured in Trader Monthly's 'Top Traders Under 30' section. We're talking BIG money here. To have the opportunity to be taught in the same environment and go through the same training process is absolute gold dust.
If you believe you can make it as a trader you need to be honest with yourself, and it's also diffcult to judge the realities unless you have some experience of trading and/or the markets. If you do have an interest in the markets, I would recommend having a dabble to familiarise yourself with how they operate but, unless you're willing to invest in your own education, you might as well just hand your money straight to all the properly trained traders out there and forego the commissions. Or, smarter yet, just stick it in a tracker fund. When it comes to trading, false economy is exactly that. I've seen plenty of traders make it, but I've also seen a greater majority fail. Even if you do, wisely in my opinion, pursue a training opportunity with a prop house; you must listen to the trainers - they know what they're talking about; you don't. Any opportunity that allows you to mingle with actual traders doing this for a living is invaluable - unless you know what other market participants are thinking and how they're likely to react you're doomed from the start.
It might not seem it but I think this advice to be quite positive!
Nuff said.
