Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 184

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Episode 184 ... Mike Mangieri (72:20)

  • Met Mike Katz in 2000

  • Applied for back office job at firm where Mike Katz was trader/broker

  • Partners of firm had falling out, a new firm needed to be formed with Gary Roth providing capital

  • Did all the grunt work with FINRA to get new broker dealer approved

  • 2008-2009 world comes crashing to a halt

  • Firm acting as a broker mainly at this point ... more and more redemptions

  • Moved from being a brokerage firm to a proprietary trading firm

  • 12 years later they're still standing

  • Market went from two exchanges to totally fragmented

  • Needed to understand all the new routes

  • Doesn't talk specifically about how much capital they had or have

  • Original partners: Gary Roth (deceased), Mike Mangieri, Mike Katz

  • Looked for recent college graduates as new traders

  • 2012-2014 got up to 20 to 40 traders, that was the sweet spot

  • 30-40 traders in total at Seven Points now, including branch offices

  • Seven Points not run like a factory, they build relationships with their traders

  • Mike Katz trades and Mike Mangieri handles regulatory things, paying bills, etc.

  • Calls around to the traders to see if their heads are right

  • Easily watches risk / buying power / positions for all 30+ traders on a single monitor

  • Halt risk is a constant worry at the firm

  • Twitter has screwed up a lot of traders

  • "Tell people I'm a dentist" (not a trader)

  • Mangieri makes fun of Twitterers talking about the "process," that it's OK to blow up

  • Youngsters follow rooms, "I short low floats, I use the pre-market high, I use that as my risk, then I short against there" .. always the same script

  • Twitterers don't take ownership of their losses

  • Twitterers standing in front of their Ferraris, laptop out at the Sistine Chapel

  • "I killed it in the morning, so I flew to Italy for the weekend ... Asshole"

  • Daily lockout numbers of $300 to $3,000

  • Your Twitter friends are not going to write out your rent check

  • Trading is the side hustle of guys who run chat rooms that have hundreds or even thousands of subscribers

  • Everybody can hit a 90 mph fast ball in the batting cage, it's a different matter when it's coming from the mound

  • Losses make you doubt everything

  • There's a domino effect when you're losing money

  • People get in a panic state ... I have to make it back as soon as possible

  • You forget good news in 30 seconds

  • You have to have a life outside of trading, otherwise you'll burn out

  • Don't be on social media all night after being on there all day

  • You can't live and breathe trading, you will burn out

  • Figure out the max loss that you can take without sending yourself on tilt before things get dark

  • You need someone in your life who holds you accountable for your losses

  • Your mentor should not be trying to sell you a DVD

  • Lockouts at Seven Points are very low

  • Struggling traders are sized down quickly

  • Trader A is comfortable trading 5000 shares... give him 7000 shares and he goes haywire

  • You can only get a little bit bigger every day ... you can't double it overnight

  • When you push the size on people, it'll screw them up

  • Position size does not equal penis size

  • No one wants to see a paper trader anymore ... don't try to apply at any firm if you haven't risked real money

  • "I short low floats" ... why? They all regurgitate the same thing

  • Don't be a one-trick pony

  • You have to find people who fit in at the firm .. one bad apple ruins the bunch

  • "I don't want to sit next to this guy."

  • Guy who slams his keyboard constantly, he's probably going to have to go

  • They put the new traders on demo at first, massive amount of journaling in TraderVue

  • How do I find liquidity in this stock? What route do I take?

  • Not a lot of hand-holding today

  • Have to tell people even though they're hard working, they have to go

  • Trading, whether at home or in an office, is a very high turnover business

  • Most common problem is that people are too afraid to trade

  • People take tiny gains because they're afraid

  • People won't stop themselves when they're on tilt, you have to stop them

  • Trader who has a new rule every day to prevent himself from doing something -- has has to go

  • Used to be a million prop firms that used RealTick ... not the case anymore

  • Twitter: @MMangieri34