Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Update on my training with SMB.

I just thought I would give you guys an update on how I am doing with SMB. Last week I finished the first 5 weeks of the program. This is really the most intensive part because of all of the material that you need to get through and try to practice on the demo. It is really designed to be done as a full time program. It took me about 6 weeks to finsish the first 5 weeks, so I did well with keeping up as best I could. I wanted to get it done as soon as possible but at the same time I did not want to rush through it.

This week I entered into the second phase of the training program. This phase is about 6-8 weeks long. During this phase you are soley practicing what you have learned the previous 5 weeks on the demo. Each week that have you work on a specific trade setup and each week they add one that you can use to trade. In the beggining you are only allowed to trade with 100 share lots and have a max loss of $150. Which is really hard to reach if you do everything you teach them. So far this week I have had 1 down day of about $13 and 2 updays of $39 and $43 respectively. I am trying to reach $50 then my goal will be $100.

Anyways I am trying to use this time as best I can to develope and hone the skills that SMB has taught me to trade intraday. I am looking foreward to going live in September.

8 comments:

  1. Thanks Dominic. Sounds like your busy. Is this the mentor part? So in September you may be trading SMB's?

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  2. Yes, this is the first phase of the mentorship. At the end of the 6-8weeks of demo trading and mentoring there are two possibilities.

    1) Training is over and you go trade your own account, you will need a minimum ($30k, $5k for training, $25k for day trading by SEC).

    or the other option which I am pursuing...

    2) You put up an additional $5k to trade with the firm...Plus you get unlimited access to all of the firms prorietary tools and paid subcriptions like briefing.com. They provide you with the capital and assume the risk past your $5k investment. If you choose this route you are assigned a mentor for the next 6-8 months of your training. So I like the idea of putting up as little as possible and I really like the firm and pay out is competitive. Lastly they will give you as much capital as you can handle.

    Anyways, have you talked to Roy since he last called you? What is your plan? Did you ever say where you were from?

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  3. Thanks for the update. By the time you're done and have some more experience I'll be close to being able to make a move. I'm leaning towards pursuing something like this while simultaneously studying for Level II of the CFA full time before I would consider a real job.

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  4. No I haven't talked to Roy since last we spoke. Ummm... Not sure what you mean about where I'm from but I did mention that I live in LA and I referenced you.

    My plan honestly is to see how your training goes and if this turns into something full time for you. Sorry but you're the first one out of the fox hole or the guinea pig. I really appreciate you keeping us updated.

    Right now I am saving saving saving trading trading trading so I can smoothly transition away from my job within 2 years. No one seems to mind or know that I'm watching the market/training/trading all day long as I take of business and keep everyone happy. I'm grateful I have a full time job with great benefits otherwise the cost and quality of health care could put me personally out of the game for a long time.

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  5. I don't mind being the guinea pig. You know what they say "early bird gets the worm", and Im hungty.

    Yes it makes it easy to have a full time job as a back up, sorry Jason. But I will admit I am itching more and more for the day I can focus all day on trading for a living.

    This is one of the main reason's that I seeked out a firm like SMB, because they are able to provide with enough capital to make the move. Now I just have to master the trading style.

    My full time target date to trade fulltime is October 2010. About 14 months and counting.

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  6. Cool. Let us know because I wanna know that it's worth it. For that amount of money sounds like a steal of a deal if you are exposed to so many different methods and experience. If not I'm sure something else will come along. It would be great further down the road if we could use an online medium with possibly voice and chat where we could share our ideas real time... inspired by the T3 Live model.

    So far I'm learning a ton on my own and doing pretty well with the resources I'm currently using. I'm pleased with my active performance with playing the earnings strategies that I've used. But always looking to hone my methodology, exploit better resources and basically improve my discipline, risk management, technical analysis so this can ultimately turn into a sustainable successful career.

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  7. I know you both acknowledge that you're lucky to be able to trade during the day, but you don't really know how lucky you are. You can practice all you want and get your experience and then move on without having to start without a safety net. I've got 5 more months but then I'm 100% free. I can make it, and looking forward to being able to watch full time again without any other stressors in my life. I'll have a six month window from Jan-June 2010 to prove to myself that what I'm doing can be worth foregoing a formalized employment path.

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  8. First I want to clarify that I meant to write that I put a long term position on in order to not get distracted from the SMB program.

    I totally think that this is worth it. There are actually a couple of different ways to get that voice and chat going. We could use either Skype or Mumble. Both are free services, both I use. SMB also has the live voice and a chat room for everyone to communicate with each other.

    I have done this in the past, where I set up a conference call on skype.

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