The Modern Trader: Wall Street Traders Reveal Their Formula for Success

The Modern Trader was written by two of the five founders of T3 Trading Group in New York City (Sean Hendelman and Scott Redler). In 2013, I worked in the Miami office of T3 Trading Group. I will use T3 Trading Group’s financial statements to reveal how T3 Trading really works.The T3 Trading Group Annual Report (Form X-17A-5) can be downloaded from Edgar on the SEC website. In 2012, 99.89 percent of T3 Trading's revenues came from the monthly fees and the trading fees its proprietary traders paid to the company ($15,106,432). Only 0.106 percent of T3 Trading's revenues came from its share of the trading profits ($16,082). T3 Trading charges its traders for every share they trade. Traders are discouraged from trading a low number of shares per trade even if their trades lose a lot of money and even if they are placing the same number of trades.T3 Trading charged each of my co-workers about $1,000 a month in trading fees. The $1,000 a month does not include the losses from the trades. On some days traders were profitable, but on most days they were not. Many traders are also charged several monthly fees. Total monthly fees can be as low as $120 a month. After one month at T3 Trading, one unprofitable trader was allowed to double the number of shares he traded ($2,000 a month in trading fees). Some traders may have trading profits that will offset some of the trading fees (and monthly fees). My manager told us on several occasions that many traders deposit additional money when the fees and the trading losses deplete their initial $7,500 capital contribution.Turnover at T3 Trading is high. The Linked In website profile of CEO Sean Hendelman reveals that T3 Trading has more than 400 proprietary trading jobs. My manager told us that it takes 6 months for traders to become profitable at T3 Trading. If the average trader quits T3 Trading in 6 months, then 800 people held those 400 trading jobs in 2012. In 2012, each of those 800 traders paid T3 Trading $18,883 in monthly fees and trading fees. Some traders may have trading profits that will offset some of the trading fees (and monthly fees).What are the odds of being a successful trader at T3 Trading Group? In 2012, all of the traders at T3 Trading had $53,607 in trading profits. The traders' share was $37,525 (70%), and T3 Trading's share was $16,082 (30%). It is possible that 799 out of 800 traders received nothing, and one trader received $37,525. It is possible that 798 out of 800 traders received nothing, and two traders received $18,762.50 each (the equivalent of a $9.38 per hour full-time job). It is possible that the top one percent of the 800 traders received $4,690.62 each, and the remaining 792 traders received nothing.The T3 Trading website reveals why revenues from the paid training products are not on the T3 Trading Group Annual Report: "T3 Live and T3 Trading Group, LLC are separate, but affiliated companies through common ownership." The T3 Live website advertises two courses that cost $1,997 each. The Virtual Trading Floor costs $200 a month. I never purchased any T3 Live training products. My manager's free training classes and materials were vague and skimpy. About two months after I resigned from T3 Trading, T3 Live sent me an email that offered me a yearly subscription to the Virtual Trading Floor for $999.50. I was also offered a package of one course (I had three choices) and one year of private mentoring for $1,199.

This book is great if you like to read auto biographies written by traders. If you want to learn a new technique or something new and exciting, it's not in this book. I cannot say it was a bad book. It's an easy read & it's inspiring to see them overcome their struggles, etc. It's just not going to be some earth shattering book that teaches you their trick to success.

I had high expectations for this book.Sadly, I was disappointed...You will not find a single trading idea or setup or method in this book, nothing.It's just the biography of 5 traders.Sure, it's inspiring, and it's good to see that despite initial struggles, they managed to overcome many obstacles to become profitable traders.and the book is actually an easy read.but nowhere do they reveal their formula for success.A big part of trading is psychology, and they focused on it quite a bit, but still, it would have been much better to get an idea of their strategies.If I want a book on psychology, there are much better ones out there (Trading in the Zone, for example)

If you are under the impression that this book is going to teach you how to day trade and make lots of money, prepare for a huge let down. This book is literally an advertisement for their T3 website. Honestly the only advice they give you is saying things like "make sure to prepare", "hard work pays off", "education yourself", etc. They don't actually ever teach you how to actually trade.Do not be fooled because this book is ranked #1 in the stock best selling section. I do not normally write reviews but if I could save someone their hard earned $10 to avoid this infomercial, it'd be worth it. Avoid!

Junk for sale. Waste of time; Waste of money. Sure wish I had read the reviews before purchasing on Kindle. Worst book I have ever purchased. If I was to start all over again, I would first read: Stan Weinstein's Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets (memorize chapter 2). Look for stocks in Stage 2: 20MA and 50MA crossover; and 20MA and 50MA pointing upwards. Then I would try to learn about Candlestick patterns: Money-Making Candlestick Patterns - Steve Palmquist and Technical Trading Tactics - John Person. These may be hard to read. However, I would focus a lot of my attention to learning: Bullish Engulfing Patterns - if you like buying near the bottom. Use trailing stop loss to protect yourself.

Not a great amount of prescription in this book but I enjoyed hearing each traders journey to success. This is not a 'how to' book but still a valuable addition to your trading library all the same

This book is just an ad for T3Live. Nothing about how to trade, not very interesting concerning that the subject of trading can be very interesting. Plenty of drama, technique, skills, etc. Not here. Could not get past the first half of the book.If you look at the distribution of reviewers I think the positive reviews are only shills for the book and probably have not read it.

Good for beginnersPrays to digestVery straight forwardExamples illustratedQuite sophisticated but directly get to topicVery experienced stories

Deals with the autobiographical and psychological aspects. Invest the cover price in stocks. At least you donot kiss it goodbye none the wiser. Old book now but still relevant biographically.