Dear all, Does anyone know about firms/jobs that would allow me to continue trading my own account in my spare time? Some people at a proprietary trading firm told me that if I work for them I shouldn't trade myself after work... also a friend at an Investment Bank told me she has restrictions... Otherwise I am considering a job as a developer, IT side or even a part time job outside finance that would allow me to continue trading... Any ideas?
If the firm is a broker/dealer, you are allowed to trade via them. Sometimes, they have a list of stocks that you can't trade.
Be careful though. Once I had a job offer and I was told that I can trade like that only to learn that the restrictions are insane. Plus they required me to move all my accounts to them. The trading fees were $50 per trade (they explained this is to discourage trading). I'm staying away of such places.
I worked at a firm as ethos has described here. Unless it's a prop firm, your mainstream brokerages (Merrill, etc) are going to forbid active trading or strongly discourage it. Something you want to find out if you want to actively trade.
Thank you all for your contributions. I didn't know about those high fees... A friend recommended that given those restrictions I should consider a job that is completely unrelated to trading but that leaves some free time to develop new trading ideas... I may do that.
If you can make money trading, why in the world do you need a company trying to pass laws restricting you when you can trade on your own???
In my case I thought I can learn something from a professional environment. And the offer was really good. But I stayed retail since I like to have full control over my accounts.
I used to work for GS, and they strongly discouraged active trading. No outside accounts with other brokerage firms. They talked to me several times because I traded options.