What questions do I ask the prop firm?

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Yatman1

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Hi All,

Next week I will be interviewing with a prop firm (this is for a backed trader trainee position). Now, having read numerous threads on here I have an idea of what they will be asking/testing me on, however, what sort of questions should I be asking them to gauge whether its a good firm/good deal?

Any advance on the following:

-desk fees/transactional costs & profit share
-Ongoing support/training?
-any restrictions in the markets that I can trade?


and from any more experienced traders out there, what are competitive answers to these and any other "must ask" questions.

Thanks in advance for your help
 
Desk fees will vary from firm to firm, depending on how many exchanges you have access to/whether you use CQG or something cheaper etc... If you're going into a backed position, competitive firms will waive or subsidise your desk fee in your first months live. Find out what the desk fees are, and what is included in the package, then you will be able to work out how competitive it is. You'll probably find that most firms are pretty similar on a like-for-like basis however. Profit sharing is something that varies quite a bit across the board, so you'll need to ask about this.

If a firm is backing you it should be in their interest to see you succeed; my firm has 4 weeks of initial training followed by many months of ongoing mentoring, and support for as long as you're with the company.

As for market restrictions, I wouldn't worry about that too much, unless you have a burning desire to trade carbon or something like that.

If I were you, I'd ask about the retention rate of their backed traders.
 
ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

then **** marilyn
 
Skill Leverage said:
Desk fees will vary from firm to firm, depending on how many exchanges you have access to/whether you use CQG or something cheaper etc... If you're going into a backed position, competitive firms will waive or subsidise your desk fee in your first months live. Find out what the desk fees are, and what is included in the package, then you will be able to work out how competitive it is. You'll probably find that most firms are pretty similar on a like-for-like basis however. Profit sharing is something that varies quite a bit across the board, so you'll need to ask about this.

If a firm is backing you it should be in their interest to see you succeed; my firm has 4 weeks of initial training followed by many months of ongoing mentoring, and support for as long as you're with the company.

As for market restrictions, I wouldn't worry about that too much, unless you have a burning desire to trade carbon or something like that.

If I were you, I'd ask about the retention rate of their backed traders.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the advice SL.

Went to see the firm in question, seemed v.good, only small group of newbie's every two months taken on the backed trainee course. 2 months training & sim, retention of 40%+ and backed position includes no desk fees, base salary & 50/50 profit split. I'm starting the course next month.

You say your firm has ongoing support etc. Did you go through the trainee process recently? What did you find the most challenging aspects initially? Obv im keen to prep as much as possible to ensure i make that 40%!!

Your thoughts much appreciated
 
wow base salary plus split and 40% retention rate? Thats pretty good.

Does anyone know of any firms that back you in the US??
 
Yatman1 said:
Thanks for the advice SL.

Went to see the firm in question, seemed v.good, only small group of newbie's every two months taken on the backed trainee course. 2 months training & sim, retention of 40%+ and backed position includes no desk fees, base salary & 50/50 profit split. I'm starting the course next month.

You say your firm has ongoing support etc. Did you go through the trainee process recently? What did you find the most challenging aspects initially? Obv im keen to prep as much as possible to ensure i make that 40%!!

Your thoughts much appreciated
Click to expand...

I started in March of this year, and have been trading live for 8 weeks now, so I'm still very new to it all. Best advice I could give you at the beginning is to trade the sh*t out of the simulator; it doesn't matter in the beginning whether you're making or losing money but you learn so much more when you're in a position than just absently staring at the ladders. In my opinion, anyway.

Good luck, hope you get it.

SL
 
simulator has got diffrent order flow
its nt an opinion btw, its a fact
ex offer 50 and 100 bid 500 - on a simulator 50 trades and you ll definitely get filled on 100 , live - forget about it. just a cosmetic difference. I was making tonns of money on a sim after just 2 weeks since I have started. Live - I ll just say , its a completely diffrent game.
I would say go and stare at the live ladder instead, because on the sim you ll compete with ppl like SL
 
Last edited:
"What questions do I ask the prop firm?"

1) where's the door

and

2) can you call me a taxi for to go to the station ......
 
shatztrader said:
simulator has got diffrent order flow
its nt an opinion btw, its a fact
ex offer 50 and 100 bid 500 - on a simulator 50 trades and you ll definitely get filled on 100 , live - forget about it. just a cosmetic difference. I was making tonns of money on a sim after just 2 weeks since I have started. Live - I ll just say , its a completely diffrent game.
I would say go and stare at the live ladder instead, because on the sim you ll compete with ppl like SL
Click to expand...

You must be using a very crap simulator, at a very budget firm. I wouldn't take advice from someone who doesn't know how to spell Schatz, either. Live is a completely different kettle of fish to the sim, but the sim will teach you the basic skills, and if the live market bounces from .32 up to .57, so will the sim. Fills are slightly different, and blips are a lot more sudden, but for the most part if you can trade a sim, you can trade live - assuming you can handle the psychological aspect that is. Oh, and also assuming you don't 'cheat' on the sim, i.e. placing bids and offers more than 10 prices away from market so that you are front of the queue when that price trades. There's really no point cheating, you're only going to hurt yourself in the long run.

Staring at the live ladder is not the way to go. Trade the sim, learn what it feels like to be in a position, learn how to scale in, out etc. Just watching the thing won't teach you much, you need to be in, with an opinion, in order to most effectively learn.

Like I said, good luck.

SL

P.S What sort of idiotic firm lets you clip 100's on the sim, if you're only going to be clipping 2s or 4s in the live market? My bullsh!t radar is pinging..
 
Skill Leverage said:
You must be using a very crap simulator, at a very budget firm. I wouldn't take advice from someone who doesn't know how to spell Schatz, either. Live is a completely different kettle of fish to the sim, but the sim will teach you the basic skills, and if the live market bounces from .32 up to .57, so will the sim. Fills are slightly different, and blips are a lot more sudden, but for the most part if you can trade a sim, you can trade live - assuming you can handle the psychological aspect that is. Oh, and also assuming you don't 'cheat' on the sim, i.e. placing bids and offers more than 10 prices away from market so that you are front of the queue when that price trades. There's really no point cheating, you're only going to hurt yourself in the long run.

Staring at the live ladder is not the way to go. Trade the sim, learn what it feels like to be in a position, learn how to scale in, out etc. Just watching the thing won't teach you much, you need to be in, with an opinion, in order to most effectively learn.

Like I said, good luck.

SL

P.S What sort of idiotic firm lets you clip 100's on the sim, if you're only going to be clipping 2s or 4s in the live market? My bullsh!t radar is pinging..
Click to expand...

you dont know much about scalping do you ? Also I dont think in any of my posts I ve mentioned trading with 100 or 50 clips. You either getting me wrong on purposedly or you thick after 8 weeks of live trading.
 
I almost exclusively scalp, and I'm doing pretty well thanks very much. I really don't think you're a genuine trader though, so I'm not really that interested in debating the pros and cons of sims with you.
 
Skill Leverage said:
I almost exclusively scalp, and I'm doing pretty well thanks very much. I really don't think you're a genuine trader though, so I'm not really that interested in debating the pros and cons of sims with you.
Click to expand...

I think you should be more humble , as they say you can as well meet people on your way down
 
It depends really, a lot of people find loopholes in the sim that they can't translate to live. Especially on liquid markets. This applies more to people that trade for literally one tick at a time though.
 
Anyone who does that is a bit of an idiot though, aren't they. It's an invaluable tool if you use it properly, but like anything else it's open to abuse.
 
Simulator trading

Please bear in mind that a simulator is not a live market, only a muppet would rely on simulator training device, SL, you really are a tool
 
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