an aspiring stockbroker

[CallYNotRaise06]

my son is 17 and wants to get into a career in the stock market. i think he wants to be self employed. pretty much buying and selling stocks himself. any adive you could give him?

what should he major in?
any good colleges you could reccomend?
whats the average salary?
should he go self employed or should he get a job with a company?

thanks

[cwsiggy]

Being a stockbroker is being a salesman. If he thinks he will like sales and hundreds of phone calls a day, then go for it.
Otherwise, I would suggest eventually getting an MBA and trying to get more into the investment side of the market either in analysis, risk management, trading, etc.

Finance degree undergrad I suppose.

it depends. if you want to be really independent he could probably get capital from a day trading type firm. dont know how easy that is these days. its tough though and generally you only get paid if you earn it.
i suppose if you want a trading job at a big firm with a real salary you probably want to get a degree in finance or economics.
At an independent type firm it wont really matter. but studying the market by reading the wsj, forbes, etc. is good for this. econ or math are probably good majors for this type of thinking.

[Paluka]

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i suppose if you want a trading job at a big firm with a real salary you probably want to get a degree in finance or economics.

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This just isn't true. I wish people would stop posting this.

true.....finance or econ classes aint gonna teach you to sell or hold if there is a panic sell off or why TAYD takes off when there is a 9.0 earthquake in tokyo

[mrbaseball]

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true.....finance or econ classes aint gonna teach you to sell or hold if there is a panic sell off or why TAYD takes off when there is a 9.0 earthquake in tokyo


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Heh [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Nothing will except experience and that often fails in a panic situation as well.

Trading just isn't taught. Being a brilliant well educated individual does not insure trading success. And several very successful traders have very little book learning.

Trading is more of an art than a science. That's not to say that certain areas of trading don't involve a great deal of mathematical expertise as some areas are purely mathematical. In my career I have done a lot of arbitrage type trading as well as trade research which were both very math intensive. And options type trading is more math intesive than straight futures market making. But your typical floor traders (and nowadays screen traders) rely mainly on experience and an inate ability which isn't the part of any curiculim.

There are lots of different traders. Being a bond options trader is way different than being a bond trader. NY equities are different from Houston energy traders by a wide margin and some guy banging out scalps in his basement on tradestation is a lot different from the spread scalping I do and a bean crush or crude crack spreader is way different from typical bean and crude traders. There are lots of different opportunities called "traders" but while similar many of them are very different from each other.

[edtost]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

i suppose if you want a trading job at a big firm with a real salary you probably want to get a degree in finance or economics.

[/ QUOTE ]

This just isn't true. I wish people would stop posting this.

[/ QUOTE ]

As an undergrad majoring in finance, the job market would really rather I had studied math/physics/comp sci/etc.

how do you know you are so right and everyone else is wrong?
you should stop being so sure of yourself you would probably be better at your job

[Paluka]

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how do you know you are so right and everyone else is wrong?
you should stop being so sure of yourself you would probably be better at your job

[/ QUOTE ]

If you don't like my advice, you can ignore it. I'm trying to be helpful.

[runner4life7]

Sorry to hijack but I'm in a similar position but a few years later down. I started as a nuclear engineer and am now switching to econ with a math based option to use all the math Ive taken.

Two questions I guess
My grades were not good in eng. If I do a ton better in econ from here on out and do steller on the GMAT(35 on ACT, I can do very well on pointless standarized tests to hopefully make up for the GPA) is it possible to still get into a top Business school.

Is going to a top business school where I should go from here to be a trader/investor, someone that works with the #s?