MichaelFinancial markets are more accessible today than they’ve ever been. People from all walks of life are trading stocks, bonds, forex, commodity futures, derivatives, and any other financial instrument you can think of. Good traders are supplementing their incomes and adding to their retirement funds. Great traders are getting filthy rich. But before they started … Read more
There are a lot of advantages to joining a good proprietary trading firm. You can trade someone else’s capital, walk away from losses, access premium trading platforms, and receive education and guidance from successful traders. The best proprietary trading firms will provide you with all of these benefits and then some. The worst prop firms … Read more
The very short answer is no, proprietary trading is not illegal, unless you are a trader at one of the large banks. Thanks to the billions of dollars of losses they suffered during the 2008 financial crisis, banks are no longer allowed to proprietary trade. The ban on prop trading only applies to large financial … Read more
No. There are some bad actors in the industry to avoid, and becoming a profitable prop trader can be very difficult, but prop trading is not a scam. There are great prop firms out there that can fund your trading strategy and help you maximize your profits. Why do people think prop trading is a … Read more
In response to the 2008 financial crisis, new regulations were enacted with the hopes of preventing another such catastrophe. The Volcker Rule, one part of the new legislation, significantly limited banks’ ability to participate in proprietary trading. The Volcker Rule does not affect individual traders, independent proprietary trading firms, or hedge funds and private equity … Read more
The most honest answer is: only to the degree that they want to be. By definition, proprietary trading firms are only trading their own money, which puts them beyond the reach of regulators in many cases. Some proprietary firms register with securities associations, but many do not. A proprietary trading firm must register with the … Read more
If you’re using a trading strategy that involves cheap, low float stocks such as pink sheets or penny stocks, you have to be aware of pump and dump stock schemes. They’ve been a problem in equity markets forever and these days, as social media and various message boards provide new pumping platforms, they have become … Read more
Pink sheet stocks had their moment on the big screen not so long ago in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. In one of the most memorable (finance-related) scenes in the film, Jordan Belfort, as played by Leonardo DiCaprio, discovers the insane profit potential of trading pink sheet stocks. The movie doesn’t portray pink … Read more
The broadly defined futures market is a market of nearly impossible scope. You can trade future contracts for just about anything — any number of currencies, commodities like wheat or corn, livestock like lean hogs, stock market indices, bitcoin, crude oil, even next year’s average temperatures in certain cities. That’s right, you can buy and … Read more
Perhaps you’ve heard the legend. Apple Inc. once traded as a penny stock. Yes, that Apple. The one behind the iMac, iPad, iTunes, iEverything; the Apple that currently has the largest market cap in the world. Taking stock splits into account, at one time you could have bought in for less than a dollar per … Read more
