Traders Network | NIBA Focus on the Membership, May 2011
NIBA|
May 02, 2011
About the Firm: How did you get started? Do you provide additional services besides brokerage?
Joe Kellogg, my partner, and I met working for a brokerage firm in southern California. Joe moved to Colorado to start Traders Network in 1987. I followed in 1989, after a short sojourn to Eugene, OR to help found a research firm which is now known as Moore Research Center.
Along with our broker-assisted and electronic trading platforms, we offer auto-traded swing trading programs. Our advisory newsletter, Trader Market Views Swing Trading Report, in its 24th year of publication is one of our several educational products.
What are the biggest challenges your clients face today, and how do you help them?
The biggest challenges facing our customers are risk management and trading discipline. Most of our clients are speculators which have never found a trading approach that works for them, or they lack the discipline to succeed in today’s global marketplace. We offer education focused on our swing strategies trading programs, as well as other approaches, to help each customer develop the disciplined risk management techniques necessary to succeed.
How has the futures industry evolved since you first started the business?
In a word – technology. I began with a quote machine that needed a toggle switch to go from one market to another. I used paper charts, delivered on Monday morning and updated by hand for the remainder of the week. Clients needed full-service brokers to provide them with all their trading information – by phone. Now clients receive data globally just by using the multiple and simple resources found on the Internet. IBs need to be on the forefront of technology changes and use them effectively.
How does your firm handle the burdens of Compliance?
Compliance is a very important to us. We have a full-time employee that is constantly busy keeping up with regulatory change to keep us current. We do not want any ‘gray areas’ when it comes to compliance.
What do you believe to be the keys to your success?
We have continued in the tradition of a full-service, extra-value brokerage firms. We have not cut services or brokers in order to compete. Instead, we’ve added more educational products, such as blogs, videos and real time webinars in order to help identify our customers’ needs and develop solutions that fit. We like to talk to our customers!
What trends are you most excited about/worried about?
I’m worried about more government regulation. It seems to me that often the regulators go overboard to implement new rules just to prevent a past problem from occurring again. Many times this results in unintended consequences for the vast majority of registered brokers who had no part in the past problem. Regulators need to keep this issue in mind when implementing new rules for the entire industry.
Why did you become a member of the NIBA?
We originally joined NIBA for two reasons. First because we had a huge respect for the people founding NIBA back in 1991. Secondly, we saw a great need for an organization that could finally speak as a unified voice for the long forgotten or ignored IB community.