Prop desks...anyone with experience?

How much more leverage do you possibly want? Isn't 400:1 or 500:1 enough?

ES

Google for Don Bright if you have good working strategy for stocks, otherwise you have no benefits with prop desks.

As ES said forex already gives you excess leverage.

im not sure i understand ur response but the whole point of prop desk is that ur risking the firms money not yours as i understand. this is a very good advantage.

If you are a good trader, even say 100 pips a month on average trader you don't even have to go and join a prop desk. You can easily start a hedge fund and investors will pour millions of dollars into it. So then, again you trade someone else's money without having to work under the rules and regulations of a prop desk.

Note that as a prop desk trader you are an employee while as a hedge fund principal / director you are the owner. Both result in trading other peoples money so there is little risk there. However there are huge differences in taxation as well as the way you are treated..

If you know how to trade...it all works out to be the same...if you do not know how to trade then you worry about risk...

So what is the point?

You must make the man money...or you do not get to trade his money...

ES

Actually ES, your totally right.. If you're a good trader you'd be inclined to just trade your own money in your PJs in your house and not even bother.

doc,

your post is better...I seem to always come off "rude"...

I sometimes just want to cut to the chase and do not have the time...

ES

It's interesting though, as I've just quit my day job to be a full-time trader as well as run the EA hosting service. (I'm still consulting on the side for 2 days a week) but hey that'll go away eventually too.

I don't think I ever plan on working at a prop desk or start a hedge fund.. the reason why is to avoid the hassle. The benefit of being a forex trader is to work from home and make your own hours. Trade when you want to, don't trade when you don't feel like it. That's the point, it's totally different than any job out there.

I've realized one major thing in all the years I've spent trading. Being a trader requires a person to create structure and rules in a totally limitless environment, there is no one around to tell you what to do, what not to do -- you are allowed to happily destroy or enrich your accounts. This is the single most important thing when it comes to a trader being a good trader or a bad trader. The good trader can take the limitless environment and create structure, create rules with discipline.

This is why most people need to actually work for someone else. Someone else needs to tell them what to do on a daily basis. Most people are simply not fit to keep their own time, create structure for themselves and have the discipline to stick to it. This is why most traders fail.

So then the real reason why anyone should go work for a prop desk is because they need someone else to tell them how to trade, what to trade, and work out risk control/money management for them etc...

so no one with actual experience?

Theres not one person on here that could start a hedge fund..