I have a few questions about 'self-employed' prop trading houses such as those above and would be grateful if someone could answer them:1. Does anyone out there work for such a place?? Would you reccomend it? What sort of salary can you expect to earn if you are relatively switched on? (Obv I realise that expected earnings in such a place is zero minus commission but in practice, how much do these traders actually make?)2. What sort of commission do you pay (flat fee, or number of ticks?) also, what are the spreads like, i.e. how much better off are you than just staying at home and using cantorindex.co.uk etc...3. I heard somewhere that you cannot hold positions overnight... if this is the case, what is your trading strategy?? I imagine you are left punting on volatile markets such as EUR/USD on payrolls Friday and not much else.4. What sort of instruments do they let you trade, I imagine FX, Equities, LIBOR Futures but do they also let you trade options? and if so, what on (only indicies or individual equities aswell)?Finally... If you are employed by such a company to trade, say FOREX, are you also allowed to punt on equities if you see a good deal?Thanks in advance, I would be gratefull to hear any commentsDan

Quote1. Does anyone out there work for such a place?? Would you reccomend it? What sort of salary can you expect to earn if you are relatively switched on? (Obv I realise that expected earnings in such a place is zero minus commission but in practice, how much do these traders actually make?)These places are a nightmare. You will not earn a salary. You will get nothing.Quote2. What sort of commission do you pay (flat fee, or number of ticks?) also, what are the spreads like, i.e. how much better off are you than just staying at home and using cantorindex.co.uk etc...You will actually pay your "employer" $1.5 or $2 per futures contract. This is for the privilege of using their capital. Of course this is illusory, since they will place silly restrictions on you regarding overnight positions and so on. In other words, they won't need to invest any capital in you whatsoever since your trading will be intraday anyways.Quote3. I heard somewhere that you cannot hold positions overnight... if this is the case, what is your trading strategy?? I imagine you are left punting on volatile markets such as EUR/USD on payrolls Friday and not much else.They will want you to do something dumb like the following: sit there with a Cantor bond trading keypad in one hand and a Trading Technologies hookup in the other and "arb" the 10-year bond, cash versus futures. Wow! How exciting. I'd rather play slot machines.Quote4. What sort of instruments do they let you trade, I imagine FX, Equities, LIBOR Futures but do they also let you trade options? and if so, what on (only indicies or individual equities aswell)? Don't forget, you cannot trade short rate futures because you cannot execute "best bid" or "best offer" in these markets. Read the exchange rules very carefully. They have appointed market makers who get to be best bid and offer. You are only allowed to take their crappy prices.QuoteFinally... If you are employed by such a company to trade, say FOREX, are you also allowed to punt on equities if you see a good deal?Thanks in advance, I would be gratefull to hear any commentsDan Usually the guy has Son In Law 1 doing the Cantor vs CBOT Two Year, Son In Law 2 doing the Cantor vs CBOT Five Year, Son In Law 3 doing the Cantor vs CBOT Ten Year, and so on. They usually don't want more than one guy or team of guys doing the same thing. So, they will asign "market making" in some shitty stocks to you.Don't do this. You are not a "trader." This is not "finance." This is a game you are likely to lose, with them collecting commissions from you along the way. That's it - that's the point of the game. It's not about trading.

are such firms essential to the liquidity of the market??

Papercut is right. These places are a losing proposition for most participants. People with an education and marketable skills should not get involved. Desperados and gamblers only.

isn't life a gamble? with every position that you take and every position you don't...who knows what the f.cking "career" will bring us in the future? except speculation, these platforms may also be used for hedging purposes.

Guys,Thanks very much for your input/advice/help... very much appreciated... The reason I asked is that Ive had a bit of bad luck with job hunting and was considering seeing what these people have to offer, will stay well clear now... I did hear of one such place which made me laugh called St. George trading - they are based above a Waitrose in Surrey! - dizzy heights.Dan

What does this have to to with Refco? Is this what they do at Goldenberg Hehmeyer?Maybe it's not a bad job or opportunity. Maybe the fact that they don't mind offering it to losers and dimwits makes it look bad. Playing blackjack also has a bad outcome most of the time, but for some people it is a good opportunity.

Most of these trading arcades offer a training scheme, a paper trading period and then supervised real time trading. Most trading will be high frequency day trading in LIFFE, EUREX, CBOT & CME futures and not options. If you turn out to be a talented trader, the rewards are good but most will fail.If you are well educated, you would be better going for typical bank jobs since futures trading is very tough these days (low vol and much noise). Alternatively, give it a go for a few months. There's probably little downside except a bruised ego.Use judgement for which arcade you go to - some are real bucket shops!

Someone once said prop firms are the underbelly of the investment community. I tend to agree.if you want a career in the "city" doing anything remotely front office based then pretty much the worst thing you can do is work for an arcade/prop shop.i have done for 2 years now and am practically unemployable in my present state...i.e a good economics degree from a red brick uni. and exposure to markets trading fixed income futures.what do i do all day....buy and sell futures. brilliant. unfortunately no institution is going to give you the time of day (however successful you are)...even though i think there are skills developed in this job that would be valuable to large financial institutionsluckily i make a pretty decent living doing this...but if i had my time again...not sure. i have friends who took jobs at back office level and at the info. providers (i.e. bloomberg/reuters) straight out of uni and along the way snuck into front office jobs at banks and are now earning really decent money. and they were/are absolute monkeys.what i'm trying to say is that once you have an arcade on your cv, banks will only look at that...and not the superior degree you may have compared to average joe who's worked inputting data at bloomberg for two years.i'm taking the cfa level 1 exam in june purely for this reason...if, one day i've had enough of this job, or, if i can't make the living i have become accustomed to, i need some kind of back up and i need these guys to look past the fact that, in their eyes, all i've done for 4 yrs is provide liquidity in government debt futures markets!!!!!p.s. If u know how to escape from arcade environment and move to inter-dealer broker, bank, hedge fund, mutual fund, middle office, back office let us know.

QuoteOriginally posted by: tomaswolfhave done for 2 years now and am practically unemployable in my present stateI can't help but wonder if you were any less unemployable at the outset.