So this morning I was talking to Mark about going Live. I am scheduled to go live with SMB next week. But I have really been doing a lot of thinking of whether I want to go live with SMB or with my buddies firm over at Ocean View Capital in La Jolla.
Remember with SMB, I paid $5k for the training program, which was not only worth it but is also tax deductable. But in order to trade with firm capital you have to contribute antoher $5k which is not a capital contribution to your account, but rather a payment for the 6 month mentoring process and to help absorb some of your early on losses. They only require their remote traders to do this. After reveiwing the payout structure it was not as good as I thought. Your % payout is determined on your Ticket average or your average profit per 1000 shares traded. The max payout is 80%, but it is not available until year 3. In the 1st year or until you make $150k your max payout is 75% and as low as 20% during your fisrt 6 months. After this the rest of the 1st year your max payout is 55% with as little as 0%. And so on and so forth.
So in a nutshell If I paid them the additional $5k and decide to leave tomorrow I am now out $5k as it is not a capital contribution.
OceanView on the other hand has a minimum $10k contribution with a flat 90% payout. Most competitive I can find. They also have the same commissions as SMB Capital. My friend Mike is the owner and I know that he is more than fare. And the thing with the contribution is if you decide to leave you take your money with you, assuming losses have not eaten in to it. This is your skin in the game.
So to make a long story short I called Mike today and let him know what I was contemplating. And he was very happy that I took the training course in Tape reading as this is how he started out when he was trading on the floor. He said that he would let me come in with just the $5k.
So this is really a no brainer for me. Go somewhere to get a higher payout and contribute the same amount of money, while at the same time if I decide to leave I get my contribution back.
Don't get me wrong, I do not regret taking the course at SMB, as if I did not take this course I would not be contemplating this decision. I just think this is the best desicion for me in order to reach my goal of trading live in a timely manner.
Mark - You said you wanted to set up an appointment to go the the La Jolla office to meet with Mike. I think I am going to schedule to go in and fill out the paperwork on Tuesday next week if you want to meet up there. Let me know.
Jason - If you are back in town you are more than welcome to come as well.
I will send you guys a copy of the Payout tables for SMB.
Dom
Hey Dom,
ReplyDeleteAwesome! That is a no-brainer.
Are you going to be going down to SD next Tues? Do you wanna meet up and carpool? Let me now what your travel itinerary is going to be.
Let me know.
So I am probably going to leave my house at 5:30am to get to La Jolla by the open. I am going to sit with Mike and watch him trade the open and then take care of business. I will most likely stay most of the day. Let me know if you want to meet up.
ReplyDeleteI am not interested in meeting with anybody at this time. I definitely want to continue to follow what you two are doing and make a decision later. Classes started yesterday for me and I've got to start making provisions for moving. As stated before, I'm probably going to stay in almost all cash and do very little trading the last four months of this year while I decide what my next major move is.
ReplyDeleteDamn that's early... I think I would have to leave here around 4:30 to make the opening. How long are you going to be there? Maybe I could meet up later in the morning... maybe 9'ish. Or I could just schedule my own meeting with Mike later in the month. ThanX Dom!
ReplyDeleteI definitely would do the SMB training before evening approaching Ocean View... I need the lightspeed training.
I think we touched on the T3 shared resource thing this morning but what I envision for the future is sharing these kinds of subscription services/resources to minimize our overheads, spreading the pain.
Hey Mark,
ReplyDeleteI plan to be there most of the trading day. I think it would be fine if you met up there around 9ish. I was not expecting you to get there as early as me.
If you want SMB training just because of lightspeed, I would say don't do it and I can teach you, but if you want the training because of everything else they have to offer (i.e. their edge in the market place). Then yes you are correct. Lightspeed is a pretty simple platform to learn.
Oh and yah I am with you on the shared services thing. The few services that I am interested in are: T3live, briefing.com, and madscan.
ReplyDeleteThanX Dom! Can you teach me their "edge" on the markets too? ;-) Besides tape reading what other proprietary edge do you get for $5k? Approach? Filters?
ReplyDeleteThe madscan subscription isn't cheap depending on which package you choose... I wonder what tools does Ocean View offer? Any subscription services?
ThanX