Why do they do it?

Thanks, this is hilarious.

Its Friday night, someones got to lighten the mood- Dion as usual sounds like hes just had a hernia

1.08 am? Shouldn't you be spending more time with your account balance?

Well, maybe he did. For him, it's breakfast time, Saturday morning, in Thailand, or another oriental landmass, so that's understandable. What's hilarious is a +32%/Dec return guy proposing coaching/training on a retail site primarily used for entertainment. Again, thanks for the ents. Enjoy the weekend!

Whilst the % return sounds impressive, I would certainly hope that vendors had more than £1,000 in their starting accounts - that was very surprising to me.

I can understand helping others if it's to give yourself more discipline, ie by feeling responsible for their money, you make yourself a more consistent trader as you don't call out revenge trades, etc. But even that is not an altruistic reason.

What was surprising about it? It's a model account!

Most people that start learning begin with far less than this.

In my opinion, better a vendor shows an actual performance (with statements) of returns from a balance this small than says...look what you can make in £'s (without mentioning that they have a balance of £50k to start.)

Fair enough then, I just figured it was your personal account from the way it was written

Out of interest, from your time at a prop shop, did you get any guidance from the prop shop or was it all "here have a seat and work it out". I just get the impression a lot of them are happy to charge you a lot just to sit there every month and if you don;t have a successful time, then it's goodbye and give our money back time

I personally didn't get formal guidance but I didn't go down the same route as most. I was rejected initially for the "training" element of the course and then sent them a rather bolshy PM (on T2W actually) saying that I had gone away, learnt to trade and had a performance record to show them. They then immediately backed me which meant I circumvented the training part of the course.

Once I was in, I had rather "informal" mentoring from the Chairman who was a huge government bond trader in the 90s and seemed to take me under his wing. This, combined with some friendly (albeit stern) advice from the Managing Director and a regular dose of didactic humiliation from the Director gave me an invaluable learning experience.

Watching and conversing with the profitable traders, also taught me a great deal although this was more about the correct attitude and mindset more than strategy.

As far as I know the grads that get through the interview process are given "classroom training". This doesn't provide them with a "strategy" it simply gives them an overview of the marketplace. e.g. the technicals, the fundamentals, how to read the order book etc. Then it is a case of have a seat and work out a way to get profitable.

Having said that, they don't charge you. When I was there, the grads got about £400 per month (I think this was thought of as an "expenses allowance"). You only start paying desk fees when you are profitable so there is no cost to you other than opportunity cost - you could be somewhere else earning a wage.

Again, when you leave, there is no need to pay anything to the firm.

I don't think this is the same for all prop firms but it was definetly the case with the one I was at.