Hi,there, I am asking for some suggestions here. Thanks a lot in advance for your help. I am a Ph.D.. student in Physics. I will get my Ph.D in half a year. Most of my work are modeling and simulations of crystal growth. I am very interested in trading and have been trading in my spare time for about 2 years. This year I turned $2000 to over $20000. I am very happy about that. And hope I can turn the $20000 to $100000 in 2004. I am using an ameritrade account for online trading. Most time while I do my physics research on the computer I put my orders also. Now I am looking for jobs. I have a dream to start a hedge fund or mutual fund firm or other private firm in future because I love this business of trading. It is the most challenging job I had done so far. You got excited so much every day. I just love it. However, I don't know If I am qualified to get such a job in the trading business? And I don't know what position is appropriate for me and how can I find such penning? Is prop. trader a good choice? I don't know if they require series 7. I don't have this series 7. Any comments is highly appreciated ! Thanks again!
Hi, Nice to know that. Are u trading for living now? Do you have some suggestions for me? Thanks a lot.
i'm assuming you are trading equities and that your time frame is intraday? Prop is not a bad way to go...there are some places that are true proprietary, u trade their capital, put up nothing, and get a small percentage of your profit...Schonfeld Securities is one example, I believe First New York Securities too, but I am not sure...these places are good to go to in order to learn on someone else's dime, although once u start making money consistently, you will probably want a better deal...these places require a series 7 i believe and this business model seems to be dying out... at other prop places u are more of a customer, so would put up like 5k or so, and they will leverage u a bit, but if you lose the 5k, u gotta put in more...so it is like trading your own money, but the leverage is usually greater than u could get if trading on your own hook..payout is usually much better than at the true prop firms...these places would be Bright Trading, HLV Trading, Assent and a handful of others...some of these places do not require a series 7 i believe, but i may be wrong on that one... if u want to go the institutional route, I would suggest Susquehanna, they have a hard-on for quant guys like yourself, but it is much harder to get into... and of course, u can always trade your own money thru places like Interactive Brokers, TrakTrade(?), etc....you'll have to weigh the benefits of this against going to a retail customer prop place... the bottom line is that numbers speak the most in this business...and if u got the numbers i don't see what can stop u from starting up your own hedge fund, company etc....so in my mind it doesn't really matter whether or not you start out prop, institutional, or just trading your own money... perhaps the institutional route may allow u to network a little more within that industry, but like i said, i think it's all about the numbers in the end... hope that helps....looks like u got a lot of research ahead of you!
The prop. route is not a bad place to start. Look into Bright, Andover, Hold Brothers, ETG. Negotiate a good commission structure (believe me every .001 adds up!) As far as the series 7 goes, if you are working on a Ph.D. in Physics, it will be a cake walk..... Good luck.
you seem like a bright gentleman but if you turned the 2K into 20K by buying all the low priced stocks that turned around ... you got lucky. if you have a systematic approach that turned 2K into 20K the year before when conditions were different there is a chance you are a one in a million trader who I will read about someday. good luck to you and I hope your methods work next yr when conditions are going to most likely be different than this yr. to be honest ... I once had a yr almost as good as yours in 2000 I turned 10K into 120K doing mostly arb. conditions changed and I have been changed too as far as returns go .... they are way lower
I hope your PHD work is not suffering from your trading ... hard to sucessfully do two things at once I am afriad . good luck to you ....
Turn the 20K into 1Mm and I don't think you'll need to work for anyone, ever. Just wondering, how many trades did you place in that time period ? and what was your worst loss ?
I read an article in this month's active Trader Magazine about HLV Trading. Apparently, they do not require any licenses. Article also says that they provide leverage up to 20 to 1. You should pick up the magazine and read the article if you are serious about getting into the business. But the most important thing to do is to research all the companies that you are considering and definately ask a lot of questions.
do not pay much attention to posters who give advice without much prior posting history ... they can be shills or scam artists promoting their firm or website