My 35%

Something is really bothering me lately. In fact, it's bothering me so much to a point where I can't trade anymore. It's my payout split. It's driving me bonkers, bananas, nuts, whatever. It's messing w/ my head so much that it's affecting my performance. There's a lot going on right now so I have a feeling this post might be a little long and sounds like just me rambling.

Look, honestly at this point in my trading career it's a lot more to do with the psychological factors than about say... learning technical analysis. It's more about growing more comfortable about taking more size and blocking out distractions. My payout is at 35% right now with the opportunity to move up as high as 50%. When I signed on, honestly I didn't feel it was a big deal b/c I thought I'll get to a point where I quickly makes back my initial losses and with the superial technology Kershner has that's not going to be a problem at all.

I started talking to my friend that trades at one of our competitors back in January, who, as a retail trader gets I think about 75% but once they take their necessary license exams they are classified as prop traders and they get 100% of their profit. Biggest difference though is that they have to put up their own capital first. We were just chatting when we first met up, but it planted a seed in my mind. Once I started consistently make money I think "I can get 75% or even 100% somewhere else." It's gotten so bad at times that when I look at my P&L I don't see the real number, I immediately discount that number by 35% but if I have a loss for the day I still look at it as 100%. Literally, yesterday morning I was doing pretty well, up about $550, $600 just after two trades, except I didn't see $550, $600... I saw like $150, maybe $200 at most in my account. I can consistently make money or manage my down days but looking back, when I have my big down days where I have some mini blow-ups it's all b/c I have been in contact w/ John maybe the previous day or I start thinking about making some serious money and either expose myself to more risk than I should or not thinking clearly and making rookie mistakes.

If you ever want to be feel negative all your life, just keep comparing yourself to other people. This is no different than the feeling people get when they try to keep up w/ the Jones' and compare themselves to their neighbors. "Oh, his lawn is greener, his TV is bigger, he drives a better car than me and gets better mileage." It used to that I would only compare myself to other traders in the company or other people that started w/ me, but now that I'm comparing to people trading at other prop firms, or at Goldman Sachs, UBS.

I've already spoken to my manager about it. I know that I might be base my thinking or decision on what I see and know, but he's been around longer and there are probably things he can explain better. I'm not trying to turn this into a big fight between me and management, have me approaching it as giving out an ultimatum: "give me higher payout or I'm gone" b/c it's not as simple as that I don't think. Also, it's just not my style... that's not how to get things done and I'm sure I'll lose that fight 12 out of 10 times. I'm trying to figure out a solution to this, maybe even creatively. I'm willing to even go as far as put up my own capital AT Kershner in order to get a higher payout. Even if that's a viable solution, I don't see the company going out of their way to say, come up w/a brand new compensation structure just for me.

Personally, I don't fully understand Kershner's business model b/c I'm not the first one that have thought about leaving to go somewhere else for a higher payout. People coming in, they don't have to put up a dime and if they end up blowing up or just turn out to be a complete failure you're eating the loss. But if they become a good trader, they jump ship and you wasted your time developing them. I understand we have a lot more technical and trading support than Ascent. Ascent doesn't have the Pit, or software developers or IBD data or people on the Quant team to work w/ us on ticker, autotrading, or analyze trading data. And maybe that's where our pay went to, is that the company needs the 65% of our gains to support these guys. But is that really necessary? These guys are getting paid and we haven't been able to print a decent chart in Gr8Trade for two years and we can't furthur customize our Time & Sales prints?

It just messes with your head...

Maybe I can do hypnosis so I wouldn't think about it. Lawrence and Jane have both told me not to think about it. But I just can't....

Personally, I have two decisions to make. Do I still want to trade? If the answer is yes to that question, it becomes a matter or where. Honestly, I still have the passion for trading. I can't see myself going back to do accounting (YUCK!). I would die. I would either die or boredom, job disatisfaction or I would kill myself.

Now, comparing Kershner to Ascent... it's not that straightforward. They're not that different where it's like comparing apples and oranges, maybe more like granny smith apple and fuji apple or comparing different kind of cheese or wine. Here are some of the things that matter to me that I would consider if I was to go trade somewhere else.

People/Traders: eh, I don't really like the guys trading at Ascent... especially the higher up guys just seems to lack a certain air of professionalism. Like their guy that's in charge of accounting who's sporting a long wavy hair as if he's just out of high school.

Technology: Ascent has Whisper as well but they can't write their own tickers and not a whole lot of people there seems to be playing the crosses like we do. Maybe it's simple b/c they can't.

Payout - you tell me, 35% or 100%? If it's simply about the fact of risk management, fine, I'll put up my own capital at Kershner.

Commission - Ascent is slightly higher, depending on your deposit it's as high as $5 per 1,000 or you can get it lower to like $4, which is only a fraction higher than Kershner.

Variables - It's about equal here if you want to think about our variables more or less as a way to diguise the even lower payout split Kershner has. I was complaining a bit about the health insurance and cost for a monitor but it's just the same at Ascent as well.