Where is the best outfit to paper-trade gold, silver and commodities

BigE

Want to be able to get in and out quick without paying 1.00/ounce premiums and driving etc. Had Lind-Waldock a couple of years ago, but website and chart access was not too good. Suggestions appreciated!!--------BigE

Justacommeman

By paper trading do you mean options or futures or both?

or do you mean paper trading as a practice account?

MJ

BigE

Futures! Real $$, ----------------BigE

Justacommeman

I use Optionsxpress and I'm quite happy with them. You can trade everything under the sun and moon including your mother in real time effortlessly 24 hours if you wanted to. So far no one has taken my mother in the other side of that trade yet much to my chagrin. As far as options I LOVE their fills and their platform. The weakness with Optionsxpress is their streaming charting. It's only slightly above average. However, I'm used to the set up and I don't use a lot of attributes in my charting. My charts are clean (basically price and volume and support and resistance). I've been it other traders lairs and those using Tradestation seemed more Deathstar like.

A lot of traders I know swear by Tradestation

I won't consider Thinkorswim because of Investools so I don't pay attention to them. One of the best options and stock traders I know uses them. I don't even know if they have a futures platform. I assume they do.

I would also suggest you get a real broker as a back up and it case of emergency. I use R.F. Lafferty. They were personally suggested to me by both Sinclair and Harry Schultz when I asked about a B & M broker. Ask for Joanne Kehoe if you open an account. She is back office but I suspect she actually runs the place

MJ

BigE

Much appreciated MJ, if I sign up maybe we can split any bird dog bonus----------------BigE

derryb

Kitco pool account. Been making money with it for years. Low spread, easy in and out. Buy/sell on line or over the phone. If trading an IRA account I recommend Scottrade and use of the many available ETFs (I prefer the mining juniors).

Just remember paper is paper and as long as paper is good you're OK. When paper starts to crumble you want to liquidate immediately.

mrearlygold

Many many moons ago a friend of mine called me, I believe silver was in the $4.50/oz range and told me that the cruise missile program was set to go and needed 130 Million Oz's of silver while we only had 110Million in reserves. So we speculated that when the US has to go into the market to buy, the prices will go up and we bought a few thousand oz's of silver in futures contract form from a company named, well., leave that till later ok? Whether or not that story about the cruise missiles was factual or not I never found out by the way.

We parlayed quite a bit of loot, especially since less than 15 grand would buy a new corvette back then, and at one point had 10,000 oz's between mid 4's and mid 8's. When the price got to roughly 30 bucks, I called our broker who called me an a-hole. I said really? Why am I an a-hole to which he replied "it's going to $100" to which I replied, "if you believe that then you should buy it as we're selling". He hung up the phone on me and would not come back online. I called my friend in Bklyn who said, "sounds like we're getting a flight to Ft Lauderdale". Which we did. His name? Mr No Neck. I was less than a quarter century old at that point and had never been to Lauderdale before. The best was yet to come!

We arrived at there offices and still this putz wouldn't come out. Nor would the sales manager. Mr No Neck grabbed the receptionists desk and heaved it thru the window 9 floors up. The sales manager came running out and he grabbed the guy and told him that unless a good check appeared he was going out that window. I was crapping in my pants watching this.

Well a check did appear and I was told to go and burn it while he sat with the sales manager. Which I did of course and I got a chance to look around at ft lauderdale. I must say that a young guy in his mid 20's with lots of money, and soon a new corvette and a boat had quite a good time in Ft Lauderdale back then. Ahhh the good old days of a young man with a pocket full of coin.

That company was international gold bullion exchange and I believe they ripped off a lot of people for tens of millions of dollars. Had it not been for Mr No Neck I would have been one of them. But instead I found my own promised land and with a few years between heritage in dallas 2 decades ago, and a brief return sojourn to NYC as well as louisiana more than 2 decades ago, I have been here ever since.

Nevertheless, do take the time to investigate people in the futures business as you may not be as lucky as I was back then. That was the1980 bull market.

Justacommeman

Tom, may I buy the movie rights to your story? Wowsers!

I lived a similar type of story. Read Wolf of Wall St by Jordan Belfort. Jordan owned Stratton Oakmont. Belfort ran the most notorious boiler room operation on Long Island and probably of all time. I worked with Jordan at Steve Madden Ltd and car pooled with Belfort at times. Scary smart. Eventually Jordan's empire crumbled ( drugs and hubris) and he and Steve Madden went to prison as part of a flipping scheme. The stories I could tell would make toes curl on skeletons. It's scary out there. And people may wonder why we are cynical at times

Wolf of Wall St should be required reading by anyone who trades or who are interested in behind the scenes of Wall St or a brokerage house.

MJ

BigE

Lordy, now my toes are curling too--------BigE

percyb

<< <i>Tom, may I buy the movie rights to your story? Wowsers!

I lived a similar type of story.
Wolf of Wall St should be required reading by anyone who trades or who are interested in behind the scenes of Wall St or a brokerage house.

MJ >>



MJ,
I worked an arb desk on the CBOE for many years and traded stocks and options against the firm's book in the late 70s to just before the crash of 86... Some guys on the street got caught front running during that time...big names went to jail. My boss shut the biz down and I eventually went off on my own. Quit trading for a number of years before returning to the action.

Anyway, lots of stories about arb houses and floor traders making gobs of cash long before black boxes evolved to steal the biz away and long before privaty equity firm emerged. There were only a handful of arbitraguers back then.

Justacommeman

arb desks and the pits where the strong survive and the weak are eaten. Has anyone here ever work the oil pits? A neigborhood sub culture that lives today and is mafia-esque to this day. Open outcry and open crow bar...................MJ

BigE

I find the futures market intriguing.

A brokerage house is offering (in a tv ad, mind you), put up 200k and they will loan you a million @ 2%

imagine how leveraged up you would be if you bought silver futures and went all in. I remember the margin for a mini was 10k or so to control 1000 ounces

So you could buy 100 of these, you would control 100,000 ounces of silver if my math is right (its late!), so each 1 cent fluctuation in silver would make or break you how much

Can you figure it out!---------------BigE

Justacommeman

BigE................don't do it. MJ

BigE

<< <i>BigE................don't do it. MJ >>



Thanks for the warning MJ, my heart couldn't take it anyway----------BigE

derryb

A bookie's collector taught me an important lesson years ago: Gamble only with money that you have.

mrearlygold

<< <i>Tom, may I buy the movie rights to your story? Wowsers!

I lived a similar type of story. Read Wolf of Wall St by Jordan Belfort. Jordan owned Stratton Oakmont. Belfort ran the most notorious boiler room operation on Long Island and probably of all time. I worked with Jordan at Steve Madden Ltd and car pooled with Belfort at times. Scary smart. Eventually Jordan's empire crumbled ( drugs and hubris) and he and Steve Madden went to prison as part of a flipping scheme. The stories I could tell would make toes curl on skeletons. It's scary out there. And people may wonder why we are cynical at times

Wolf of Wall St should be required reading by anyone who trades or who are interested in behind the scenes of Wall St or a brokerage house.

MJ >>




Maybe better than that is Metal Men, which is about Marc Rich

jmski52

Mr. EarlyGold, I may have mentioned it - but I did have dealings with International Precious Metals Corp, from Ft. Lauderdale - back in 1978 & 1979. They also went out of business after gold hit its peak. My broker was Terry Ziegler. When Terry advised me to sell at around $700, I thought he was nuts, but I sold. Good thing I did - I won big. He resurfaced with another fly-by-night operation in Ft. Lauderdale, Bengal Trading.

We are getting close to that type of atmosphere again, but I don't think that the metals are done yet by a long shot.

guitarwes

In the past 6 months, a local bail bond owner's wife sold alot of silver and gold to the local B&M shop that he bought from International Precious Metals Corp in the 80's. I saw the original receipts and was astonished. Some figures that stood out were:

"gem" roll of 79-S Morgans- $2950
BU roll of common Morgans- $1580
1/2 roll of BU common Mercury dimes- $975
13- 100oz. Engelhard silver bars- $11700 (that's $9/oz when silver was about $4-$5)
AU Saint Gaudens- $875
"gem" St. Mountian Commem- $925

She faired ok with the bullion type stuff, but they were burnt bad "collector coin/bullion" stuff.

OPA

<< <i>In the past 6 months, a local bail bond owner's wife sold alot of silver and gold to the local B&M shop that he bought from International Precious Metals Corp in the 80's. I saw the original receipts and was astonished. Some figures that stood out were:

"gem" roll of 79-S Morgans- $2950
BU roll of common Morgans- $1580
1/2 roll of BU common Mercury dimes- $975
13- 100oz. Engelhard silver bars- $11700 (that's $9/oz when silver was about $4-$5)
AU Saint Gaudens- $875
"gem" St. Mountian Commem- $925

She faired ok with the bullion type stuff, but they were burnt bad "collector coin/bullion" stuff. >>



Caveat emptor to those speculating with the pucks....get in & out quickly if you must.

jmski52

I was buying 1,000 oz. silver contracts and some gold contracts (they were a non-standard size, but I don't remember what size they were) on a 10% margin account with IPMC. Luckily for me, the market was on my side at the time.

I did "take delivery" of 2 rolls of Sovereigns from IPMC, paid for with some of my gains. Their prices to me were at the market. I didn't know that they sold "collector rolls" of common stuff like that. My broker did get his commission, tho'.