How to become a trader

hello all,

I currently work as a fund accountant having graduated with an accounting degree.

However, i am not certain i want to do accounting fro the rest of my life.

I've always been interested/fascinated with trading. Question is, i am 29 years old, have no experience in it. How difficult would it be to get a job as a trader's assistant at one of the big broker dealers, or even a small one. Or is there no hope for me? what do you guys suggest?

As this would be a huge change in career path (probably be taking a huge pay cut going from asst controller to trader's assistant)

I have been looking around these forums and read some great posts about book recommendations to get started.

Thanks in advance for the replies.

[midas]

Option 1 - apply to business school - Wharton, Columbia, MIT, Univ Chicago, or any finance heavy B school. Get MBA, apply for trader job.

Option 2 - Move to New York, seek out a job where you can be the accountant for a hedge fund. On the side, dazzle the traders with your money making ideas until they are forced to make you one of their own.

Good luck.

absorb everything you can about trading styles and then start to trade yourself also NETWORK

[ QUOTE ]
Option 1 - apply to business school - Wharton, Columbia, MIT, Univ Chicago, or any finance heavy B school. Get MBA, apply for trader job.

Option 2 - Move to New York, seek out a job where you can be the accountant for a hedge fund. On the side, dazzle the traders with your money making ideas until they are forced to make you one of their own.

Good luck.

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I guess i fall into option #2 since i currenty work as a fund accountant at a hedge fund here in NYC. Mainly long/short equities, ton of options, some equity swaps. In the past couple months here, i've learned a great deal about options ranging from basic strategies to more intermediate concepts like butterfly spreads.

But i guess should start thinking about money making ideas, wish me luck.

[Sniper]

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I have been looking around these forums and read some great posts about book recommendations to get started.


[/ QUOTE ]

Start reading, start trading you own account, impress the traders at the hedge fund you work for.

Simple formula /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Paluka]

I think getting a job as an assistant trader is pretty easy, especially if you approach derivatives trading firms which still have a presence on the trading floors. I think an MBA is useless, you would much much rather get an advanced degree in Mathematical Finance or somesuch.

[ QUOTE ]
I think getting a job as an assistant trader is pretty easy, especially if you approach derivatives trading firms which still have a presence on the trading floors. I think an MBA is useless, you would much much rather get an advanced degree in Mathematical Finance or somesuch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Paul, how much do asst traders usually make? and i am assuming it will be easier to get a job as an asst trader at a broker dealer rather than a hedge fund.

[Paluka]

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I think getting a job as an assistant trader is pretty easy, especially if you approach derivatives trading firms which still have a presence on the trading floors. I think an MBA is useless, you would much much rather get an advanced degree in Mathematical Finance or somesuch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Paul, how much do asst traders usually make? and i am assuming it will be easier to get a job as an asst trader at a broker dealer rather than a hedge fund.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay first off I'm not Paul, I'm Paluka.
You are right that hedge fund jobs are harder to bet.
I think assistant traders probably start btw 35k and 65k.

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I think getting a job as an assistant trader is pretty easy, especially if you approach derivatives trading firms which still have a presence on the trading floors. I think an MBA is useless, you would much much rather get an advanced degree in Mathematical Finance or somesuch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Paul, how much do asst traders usually make? and i am assuming it will be easier to get a job as an asst trader at a broker dealer rather than a hedge fund.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay first off I'm not Paul, I'm Paluka.
You are right that hedge fund jobs are harder to bet.
I think assistant traders probably start btw 35k and 65k.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oops, sorry bout that Paluka.
thanks for the info.

[Sniper]

You might also find "Trading with the enemy" by Nicholas Maier, an interesting read.

[cwsiggy]

Since you are already in the door, why not just network with your traders? Ask to sit in some days and watch. Drink beers with them, and when something comes up, you'll have an in.
Most trading jobs on Wall Street (at the assistant level) are all who you know. At the higher levels(position trading ) with big firms like Goldman etc. you may need an MBA believe it or not - just to be an assistant. A word of warning, unless you are really tired of your present position, trading is not as glamorous as it seems and it's very high stress. If you are a buy side trader, you are really just an order taker(though with a decent salary). With a hedge fund, depending, you may have more leeway with trade ideas and get paid on them. My two cents.

yes trading can be stressful if things aren't going your way that day, along with many sleepless nights when holding over night lol

[Paluka]

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yes trading can be stressful if things aren't going your way that day, along with many sleepless nights when holding over night lol

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I'm a trader. I've never had a sleepless night, and I don't find my job to be particularly stressful.

do you trade for a firm or yourself? what type of trading do you do? what type of securities do you trade?

[Paluka]

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do you trade for a firm or yourself? what type of trading do you do? what type of securities do you trade?

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I work for a firm. I'm currently an equity options market maker, but in the past I've traded a few different things includikng ETFs, futures, some index options etc...

cool....wish i had market maker access to otcbb securities to see how many orders are waiting to be executed.

any reason why you still work for a firm and not trade for yourself?

Don't mean to beat a dead horse but to the original poster:

At 29, you are pretty late to this game but as a fund accountant at a hf you are in a good position to still have a shot. You say you are interested in trading, so be honest with yourself, how interested and what about it interests you? What type of trading do you want to do? The world of trading is huge and has many roles. Floor trader, market maker, sales trader, prop trader, etc? Sell side or buy side? And what products interest you?

Nowadays the street is obsessed with quants. They hire these top engineering and CS grads to work on program trading or derivatives desks. I suspect this will be the long term trend as sell-side trading is moving much more toward program trading, automated hedging and risk management.

Your best bet is definitely networking with the traders at your fund. They will be your best resource and certainly will know many other traders in the industry.

[chardog]

Thanks for this post. I am a software engineer that has been interested in finance and economics for some time. I had considered going back and getting an MBA to get into these fields but decided against it. I decided that I wanted to continue writing software as my main career, although I have become pretty bored in my field of software (networking). The dream would be to write software targeted at financial applications.

This "quant/program trader" job sounds very interesting to me. What is the job title normally used when a company advertises this position, "program trader"? Is it something that companies hire directly for or do you have to work internally at the company beforehand as an applications engineer? What companies are the major employers of these program traders, the major brokerages?

Any info would be appreciated.
thanks!

Quants are in demand everywhere on the street. I recommend you take a look at www,wilmott.com. It is a forum for the quantitative finance community and I believe many of the members are quants on the street or aspiring PhDs. Specifically, you can check out the "latest jobs" section and see what type of positions are available and what the required skillsets are. Good luck.