Kicked out by Schneider Trading Associates, my feed back

that name rings a bell. wasn't he a scammer teaching a course on how bank traders trade
 
I was on their course and got to the trading floor. I left after about 4 weeks, when I realised that the probability of making money was very limited doing what I was doing (trading the flies and spreads, brent crude)! I now trade at home, equities and FX, and making money on a daily basis.
The biggest problem about trading the flies and spreads is that there was no correlation between them and the outrights. Whatsmore the oscillators, i.e the technical analysis, didnt stand up to the price movements. All in all, I felt that I was trading blind on every trade. And I'll admit, I made a loss nearly every day I was there. That's never good for a persons confidence! Oh yes, and the commissions were terrible! In the end I felt that I was just a liquidity provider to the big boys, used and abused :)
Now I'm at home trading CFD's and I'm making a decent living, even at the beginning of my career. Of course I'm risking my own money exposing maximum 30% of my total equity (cumulatively), but I have found that sticking to core money management rules, and understanding the fundamentals & the technicals, will produce better results.
I would like to find someone who has made a good amount of money from their grad scheme, after commissions. When I say "good" I mean GBP50k+ a year.
I would happily go back to Schneider as a trader because the atmosphere there was great, from my understanding the 4th floor is where the good guys are (I was on the 5th floor), but I would trade on my own account, trading outrights, in an experienced team.
My advice to anyone starting there would be to try and get into a team on the 4th floor, and not get stuck on the 5th floor. I was trading around people who, like myself, were clueless (sorry guys!) and thats never a good environment to be in. There are apparently people making good money at Schneider, its just finding them and feeding off them.
good luck!
Luke
 
Would you mind answering my previous questions? Have always wanted to know more about Schneider, fancied a try myself :p

Club said:
How much do they start you on? I guess they don't give you an account, but start you on lot size, or something..

Do they give you enough capital to actually trade with in order to meet their desk fees / living costs?
Click to expand...
 
They allocate a max lot size of 40, but limit this to 2 lots on the front spread/fly and 4 further down the curve (obviously you shouldnt use your maximum allocation). Max daily stop loss is USD300. They also suggest that the max your position can go offside is 3 ticks (1 tick is USD20).

This isnt the issue though. You can make a living with these lot allocations. Its just the fact that they had a go at anyone trading the spread (let alone the outright) and therefore we had to try to make a living trading a fly that moved about 5 ticks in one day, and because of the queue sizes it was pretty impossible to get in at the price you wanted. So for example, if at the beginning of the day you saw that a good price to buy was 2, you might get filled two hours later but at that stage of the day, 2 might be a good place to sell. So, very often I was in a losing position or scratching out.

The guy on my team who was doing the best was seriously legging in and out of positions. I have learnt that he quite recently got chucked off the course for taking silly risks by legging too often and letting positions go offside by more than 3 ticks.

Desk fee was zero first month, then went to about 400 quid second month then gradually grew to full amount of about 1500 by month 6. So yes I think that you could earn enough a month to cover desk fees. But remember this, you cant take money out first 6 months so you gotta have enough capital to live on during that period.
 
^ Hello, thanks for sharing this info.

You mentioned in an earlier post that you now trade at home and earn a profit on a daily basis. May I just ask, is this with a proper broker or a spreadbetting company?

Thanks in advance.
 
Sounds pretty cut throat.

So how do Schneider make money? From backing the few good traders? Or they get rebates or something from having lots of traders churning and not losing too much, but not making much?
 
Pi3141 said:
^ Hello, thanks for sharing this info.

You mentioned in an earlier post that you now trade at home and earn a profit on a daily basis. May I just ask, is this with a proper broker or a spreadbetting company?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

I trade atm with GFT, I would class them as a proper broker. I don't spread bet. I trade CFD's via their dealbook platform.
 
Club said:
Sounds pretty cut throat.

So how do Schneider make money? From backing the few good traders? Or they get rebates or something from having lots of traders churning and not losing too much, but not making much?
Click to expand...

thats a good question. I know that the ones making money are ICE, the exchange. They are raking it in! And Schneider themselves make a commission from each trade, as well as desk fees. and then, the money you have in your trading account that you will want to withdraw, take away about 20% of that as it belongs to Schneider as part of an extra provision.

Of course, having a business entails costs. I just think that the costs are too high relative to the quality of service I was receiving. Yesterday for example I made a gross profit of GBP500 (I try to make £250-£500 a day early on in my career) and my costs were £100. At schneider my costs took away about 80% of my gross profit on a good day, which is just silly. Then you have a mortgage and travel and food. And remember that 20% provision on any withdrawals you make!
 
What instruments are you trading and why do you pick CFDs over spread betting when you're opening yourself up to a tax liability but are subjected to similar spreads?
 
simply because it's my main source of income, which means HMRC will tax me anyway.
Unless I'm mistaken?
 
I promised the wife that I wont get into trouble when I move back to the UK. So, for now I'll be a good boy. But as soon as I've become a more efficient trader, I'll get a surplus 'subsistence income' that will enable me to then spread bet totally tax free.
Believe me, I like paying taxes as much as the next guy :)
 
LukasFlirt said:
thats a good question. I know that the ones making money are ICE, the exchange. They are raking it in! And Schneider themselves make a commission from each trade, as well as desk fees. and then, the money you have in your trading account that you will want to withdraw, take away about 20% of that as it belongs to Schneider as part of an extra provision.

Of course, having a business entails costs. I just think that the costs are too high relative to the quality of service I was receiving. Yesterday for example I made a gross profit of GBP500 (I try to make £250-£500 a day early on in my career) and my costs were £100. At schneider my costs took away about 80% of my gross profit on a good day, which is just silly. Then you have a mortgage and travel and food. And remember that 20% provision on any withdrawals you make!
Click to expand...

So back the rare golden nugget that comes through and actually makes a profit from trading - but still make money from all the others that don't make a profit. Just have to teach them / rick monitor them enough so that they don't smash their account up.

Sounds like a good business plan! Am sure all the other prop houses will be all over it! (If that's not what they already do)
 
OK, yes, the info has gone from the site. The rumour could be true then, that the programme is being shut down after the takeover by Marex...

Try calling them next week...
 
7am7ad said:
Which program is better that I can apply for
Click to expand...

On the training course take a look at their accounts (they cost £1 from Companies House - Google "Companies House Webcheck" and follow the link).

I quote "The principal activity of the Company continued to be the facilitation of trading and brokering of financial instruments ........ Our trader training program continues to add clients to the business and ........ has provided us with an opportunity to expand the throughput of trainees becoming clients."
 
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