I am a college sophmore in a Finance/Economics program and have been trading retail off and on for a couple of years. I've had mixed results due to inexperience but feel I have progressed and matured as a trader and have a good handle on what this line of work entails. I am positive that proprietary trading is the career for me and would like advice for what I can do to get started, or at least prepare and educate myself so that I become a desirable candidate when I do decide to enter the industry full-time. As of right now, I am almost 20, living in Tucson and attending UofA. I do not currently have the $25,000 most firms require as collateral but am willing to put up what I can to get licensed and get experience or training. While I would love to enter this career right now on a full-time basis (as I plan to within 2 years), I realize that this may not be possible and am just looking to get my foot in the door. Any input would be appreciated.
Well the good news is *if you can trade profitably*, you can start today in futures e-minis with very little capital. The bad news is you can only start *if you can trade profitably*
I'd say stick with a real job until you learn to trade profitably and have a defined methodology in place. Then you can go to prop or retail whatever based on what your successful methodology dictates. If you go straight to prop and blow it then your way behind the 8 ball.
Bright has an internship program for college students. Great way to learn and get your foot in the door!
Heh, same here I still go to school and started trading in january this year with Echotrade. But the major problem is that I have way too little money... I recently had a streak of losing days and this decreased my money heavily. Good thing is that I don't really "need" the money and therefore i'm not reliant on making profit yet, which of course doesn't mean that I don't work heavily to be profitable If it's really your desire to be trader I'd advice you to take your series7, and make a deal with any proprietary firm which probably will help you in getting started ... easiest way -> call 'em
Advice: Get a part time job to pay the bills.... work nighttime.... Trade part time in daylight hours. Sleep somewhere in between because you will need plenty of it.
look up these firms<worldco, ETG, Bright trading, Andover> Each has a different business model some require capital contributions some do not. A couple of these firms have offices in Scottsdale (close to you) When you start get a part time job to pay the rent. plan to stick with it 2 years. If you are not up and running by then move on. This is how I got started............. good luck