PipStop

As I sit here at the LA Traders Expo I've figured that the best way to get my thought out would be to keep a running commentary of thoughts I have throughout the the few days I'm here. So if you're subscribed to the RSS feed just bookmark the link to the original post and keep refreshing.

I got here at 9 a.m. this morning and it was pretty desolate. I thought there would be places to sit and chat with traders, but there are very few seats out in the open, and it seems if you want to sit down that you have to be in one of the session rooms.

One thing that I heard a trader sharing his disappointment in was the fact that the exhibit hall isn't open through the day today (it opens tonight), and there were only a few free sessions running. He left and said he'd come back tomorrow when "everything gets started."

Looking at the schedule, I can't disagree at all. The expo runs Wednesday through Saturday, but the meat and potatoes is really Thursday and Friday.

10:15 a.m. - Walked into a session "Opportunities in Stock Index Spreads / Trading Relative Strength with Tom Sosnoff.

10:34 a.m. - Tom speaks really quickly and I'm sure 90% of the gathered group here (about 100 people) are totally lost and just laugh when he appears to say something funny. Tom Sosnoff, incidentally is the co-founder of thinkorswim Group Inc.

11 a.m. - The session ends and I've taken up residence in the back on an elevated platform where I can plug my laptop and cell phone in and work at a small table.

11:12 a.m. - People think I'm some sort of authoritative figure since I'm sitting a feet higher.

11:55 a.m. It's been great to talk to everybody that I have had the opportunity to already. I had a handful of conversations.

12:07 p.m. - Tom Sosnoff is going through a live trading session now, and I've officially been KICKED off my platform.

12:26 p.m. - There is some execution happening using the thinkorswim platform, and the room here is filling up - I'm guessing there are probably 300 folks in here now. As Tom says "It's hard to trade - you can't just pick a stock to trade in the morning and expect to make money." Amen. Then he continues, "We're trying to get you a little more accomplished in using the products."

12:42 p.m. - As Tom spouts out his tips, he says "Many of you come to a of these events and you're experienced - event goers. By now you should have raised your level of trading success. The challenge to you is that it's not acceptable to no longer be making money. The challenge is to raise your level." I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details of his tips - I type fast, but not that fast.

12:49 p.m. - thinkorfswim.com has a great resource of stock and options trading resources. I think moving forward it'd be great to house some of that information on the Trading Post website.

12:51 p.m. - Tom is talking about trading futures and knowing the different nuances of doing so that makes it difficult. I also think about the terminology that is involved in trading futures and it is worlds apart (the difficulty in terminology) from the Forex market - or maybe I'm just biased.

1:08 p.m. - This comment was made to me earlier, but Tom really does speak in a matter-of-fact manner, and really brings the conversation to the traders. Sure he speaks fast, but if you can keep up, you don't need a PhD to understand him. With thinkorswim, he makes a note of saying the technology supports the education there.

1:12 p.m. - According to Tom if you're successful in trading and spend 1% of what you make on transaction fees, you're luck. If you spend 25% you're trading too much. The sweet spot is 3 - 12 % maybe up to 20%, which would indicate you had a good year.

1:14 p.m. - Lunch time.

1:31 p.m. - Lunch will have to wait a few minutes. I've just ducked into an "Intro to Technical Analysis" session held by TradeStation Securities. It's rather boring (aka, wondering how relevant this is to anybody - especially when it's "Intro" to this particular subject) and the guy is relying too much on his Powerpoint presentation. Also, a bar chart on a black background show up horribly on the big screen. This should really be entitled, "Intro to the TradeStation platform."

1:37 p.m. - Officially having some Internet issues (as I shake my head). Now it's time to walk out of here for lunch.

2:33 p.m. - Walked a few blocks to In-N-Out Burger - overrated by far, but I always have to have one when in California. It is 103 F out today - blazing to be sure, but I got back into the convention center and I was barely sweating. That's what they call dry heat.

3:02 p.m. - I wander around talking to a few folks as I look for a session that is going on. There is one that is just finishing. Tom Sosnoff is just finishing another session - that guy is a machine!

3:28 p.m. - Just talked to John Conolly from the CME Group. They've partnered up with a variety of different groups here at the Trading Expo - thinkorswim is just one of them. I asked about the possibility that we could adapt some resources from their website on ours. Obviously Trading Post is an unknown quantity to him and the CME is a well known organization, so we'll have to provide compelling reason to have their information on our website moving forward.

4:01 p.m. - In the algorithmic trading trading session with Phil Jacobson from Robotrader.

4:14 p.m. - I finally have my Internet back up and running. Took long enough.

4:27 p.m. - This is a very vanilla presentation of walking through what automated trading is about. This can be a 5 minute overview and he should just show us what Robotrader does. Now he's talking about what Robotrader's capabilities are - just show us. Show us what makes Robotrader so great. The following quote is indicative of what I've been hearing for the past half hour ... "The best markets to trade are highly liquid markets."

4:50 p.m. - I've noticed quite a number of women here at the Trading Expo. Not to say that Trading is a men's thing by any means, and it's still (by eye-balling it) about 75% men, but it's nice to see some more balance as opposed to other events that I've been to.

5:03 p.m. - It's the Q&A session of this now and one woman just left mentioning what a "wonderful" presentation that was to someone. Just by looking at her eyes and body language I've translated that to mean, "Wow, I think I have really found what can be the money tree that I can shake cash out of." Disappointment will set in for her sooner or later. Phil was asked what the expected return for this would be, but he mentioned that he could not disclose that. Then someone asked a follow-up question and Phil mentioned that the systems could expect at least a 70% return.

5:08 p.m. - Oh and the cost for Robotrader is $30,000 annually, or $2500 a month. Then Phil mentions that pricing will change in the next 30 - 60 days. I think he needed to say that to retain the interest of more than 2 or 3 people.

5:14 p.m. - I'm going to be headed to the exhibit hall which just opened to be further subjected to marketing materials and paraphernalia (I was about to say propaganda). We've all been bombarded with a bunch of stuff from a bunch of companies, but the exhibit hall is going to be like walking into the lion's den.

7:14 p.m. - I'm out of the exhibit hall, since it closed at 7 p.m. and had some great conversations with potential Trading Post partners. Off the top of my head I had some brief conversations with ODL Securities, MF Global, Global Futures and Exchange Trading Inc., and I subscribed to the New York Times, too. One thing that would have been unheard of even last year - the price for a NYT subscription is the same for deliveries in Canada as it is in the USA.

8:03 p.m. - It's been a long day, and I've left. I will be posting additional thoughts and points about this session and others in a consolidated post on Saturday. I'll be back tomorrow morning with more expo commentary.