Small summary: Finance undergrad from a non target. Only took finance to learn about markets. Didn't learn jack about how to trade/markets in uni....and was spending most of my time reading about technical analysis in the uni library. After many years of attempting to be a successful trader, failing miserably when I risked it all to go full time, rollercoaster equity curves, I have finally come to a place where it is consistent and rising. I'm sure there will still be setbacks but I am heavily aligned with Mark Douglas's Trading in the Zone and why it is a gem. I am waiting for a few more months of consistent profits before I increase the amount of contracts I am trading in futures and start earning back the tuition money I lost to the markets. Right now I want to learn something new other than trading. (I will still be open to learning and adapting with the ever changing market, but I can do this as a hobby I've realized). In terms of the future and the real world, I am wanting to grow myself professionally now that I've somewhat cracked the puzzle of the markets Ive been wanting to solve since high school. 1. CFA- I failed with a band of 9 the first time I took it. I didn't enjoy learning it at the time since it wasn't teaching me how to trade. Now that I am not looking for it to teach me to trade, I am more open to the things they teach and feel like I can actually soak it in this time around. Getting the certification will help me land a job in an industry I like and maybe help with networking and maybe one day build my own fund? 2. Coding-Honestly looking back, I wish I majored in computer science vs finance. However I feel like with trading, if I commit myself to learning and speaking code....I could become good at it. It's one technology that has revolutionized the world and helped my life in so many ways. I also think if I study how to code, it will help me automate my strategies/data research, etc. 3. Chinese- A mysterious place with interesting changes. It really does feel like the 21st century will be Asia's century and it could help me get a job there and get a better understanding of how people operate there. Won't help with my trading but opens a whole new world up by knowing the language. 4. Data Science- Currently data scientists are becoming more and more in demand. Professionally, this will help my "reliable salary" boost up by a lot. Also with the inevitable shift into AI, feels like it will become more in demand similar to how coding is now. Not only will this help professionally, I feel like it can help tremendously in my own individual trading. I'll have lots of data and heck, maybe might find a new edge I never thought of. If you were currently young and weren't sitting comfortably in leisure now, which would you pick to learn for the next 20-30 years? (I want to use my time to pursue one of the options above when market has low vol/opportunities/balancing)
Honestly, I would do it all over again. Meaning, trade, lose money, trade, lose money, trade, lose money, trade, don't lose as much money, trade, break even, trade, make a little, trade, make a nice living, trade, make so much that you don't even care about it anymore. If you want to trade, trade. If you want to learn coding, code. When market is quiet and you want to trade, find another market to trade or learn a new instrument. Don't learn to code in order to learn how to trade. Ask yourself the question what you really burn for. If it's not trading, then stop. Don't try to cover up your weaknesses, that way you will end up in mediocrity. In order to progress, push what you are good at. Always ask yourself: "If I wasn't afraid of the future, what would I want to put my energy into?" If your answer is "videogames" then you should probably go ahead and try to make your living with videogames. If your answer is "I want to make 100k a year" Find a way to make that figure....which isn't necessarily trading. The most important thing: The answers have to come from yourself. Don't sit there and wait for the suggestions from other people. Take a piece of paper and write down what you are good at, what kind of activity you have enjoyed in the past and what you can imagine doing for the next 5 years even if it wasn't paid that well. Then go ahead and do it, simple as that. Stop improvising in order to achieve "success", that is suggested by social media and peer pressure (money, women, car, house). The reason you ask is because you want to go the low risk way and ask other people what they would do. Because if you do that and fail, it's not 100% your fault...it's a little bit theirs, because they said so. But that's the way of the loser. Make a plan, follow it, fall on your face, get up, take notes, try again.
I don't think you are understanding what I was asking for. The one thing I set out to do was to TRADE when I graduated high school. I was curious as to how 2008 happened, how I could have seen it coming, how I could have profited from it. Hence I chose finance as a major and through many trials and tribulations (I've started actually seeing consistency vs up and down), I have started to get the knack for it. Trading to me now is just being with the market, going with the flow. I can now "read" the market. I figure now I will just keep being disciplined, wait for opportunities, increase size/scale, and rinse and repeat to consistency. There will always be a need to adapt and learn new things about the market, but for now I got what I wanted out of the market which was reading and understanding the market. I accept there will be losses as always and there will be setbacks, but like you said---the key to trading is "Make a plan, follow it, fall on your face, get up, take notes, try again." Ray Dalio's Principles is much similar to the process of becoming a successful trader. I will ALWAYS trade. For the rest of my life, I will be involved with markets. I LOVE it, but I also want something else to pursue/learn/challenge myself other than markets/trading. What I am asking now is to see what one would choose given the 4 options I listed. As Miyamoto Musashi once said, it's better to learn other things than just swordsmanship. Maybe through data science/coding, I can fine tune my trading with the knowledge I gain from learning something new. It will open my mind up to a world I did not know. I can contribute something to the world vs just adding liquidity to the markets. And out of the 4 options, I don't "love" any of them. I just want to improve myself on those 4 options but don't have time to learn them all.
Learning a new language is always useful. Learning the languages du jour (Spanish or Chinese) is never a bad choice, but I will warn you Chinese is even hard for native Chinese speakers. Data science is currently the new hot field. Its getting simple enough that most data science jobs will just be devops/data collation and the real modeling is done by PhDs. This has been my experience in industry, and most developers I talk to that transition to data science really don't like it. There are also significant ethical implications in many mainstream data science projects. There's not a lot of engineering, and the "code monkey" aspect of it doesn't change. You'll likely want a MSc/PhD in a math field, computer science, or engineering in order to do the fun stuff. Most data science jobs I've seen that might be impactful and pay well are typically augmenting engineering teams, bioinformatics, or interesting government work. All of these have a floor of MSc in a math or math related field. Advanced degree requirements are typically to demonstrate you are capable of critical thinking and reading academic papers critically. It's a talent learned, but one that's really only capable by attending an advanced degree program. Computer Science is about coding as much as electrical engineering is about toasters. 98% of people who take Computer Science do it for the job and fail out quickly when they realize after 2 semesters of rudimentary programming (to teach you the school's choice of language) everything is done with paper and pencil. Very little is done actually programming and most of the understanding in CS comes from theorem proving. It's a lot like a math degree, with a few less classes. I learned everything in software engineering in my internship and subsequent work full time. I can say honestly the last time I coded in my undergrad was for my advanced C++ class in my freshman year. CFAs are on the chopping block with the new AI revolution in finance. Not worth it. If you have a finance degree an MBA emphasis finance will put you in a good place to find more interesting work with the flexibility to venture to different fields. Your skills in finance translate well to accounting which could be a boring but lucrative way to gain enough cash to trade for yourself. Look for avenues out with the tools you have in your backpack before going hunting in the shed. If you want to expand your horizons, an MSc in Computer Science will likely result in you failing out. Nothing personal - going from 0 to BSc in CS takes 4 years and a lot of very, very smart people fail out of the degree after Operating System Theory, Compiler Theory, and Algorithm Analysis. Expect an absolute truckload of work. I remember many, many nights of zero sleep because of a deadline for a project, proof, or test. I can remember my first programming class had 500 people (100ish/section taught auditorium style), my second programming class had 100 (50/section) and every class thereafter had between 20-50 students, with my graduate courses consisting of 3-5 students. When I graduated with my BSc there were 6 of us sandwiched between every business major and fine arts major the school could offer. It was amazing seeing the effects of a STEM weedout in person. I can tell you from experience I know more people who failed the CS program than graduated. Many went either for a BA in CS (you cant go to graduate school) or to another field entirely. Graduates around me are struggling with simple things coming from degrees like mechanical engineer so don't feel bad if you're stuck hard for a while. Computer Science possesses all of the "heady" parts of math. There are some absolutely mindboggling results. If you do it, expect to bust your ass. The programs place particular weight on students without BScs in CS coming in from graduate degrees. Your comps will be brutal (if you go the PhD route) and you'll be grilled a lot by your advisor. There's no shame in learning to code. You can get a bottom rung job with a decent resume and projects almost anywhere making decent middle class pay. Your degree won't really hinder you there. But advancing to senior/principal will likely require a CS degree or many, many years of service. I'm happy to help you via PM if you have programming questions or need advice. Just send a PM. I'll try to get to it when I can.
I am 30 year old, Chinese Canadian living in Toronto, came here as a child when I was 10. I have been a software engineer for 6 years and I recently finally quit that career 4 weeks ago for full time trading. It was a 6 figure career and I was eager to get out of it due to the boredom and unhealthy work hours. Looking into China is a smart idea, I visit China once a year and progress there is amazing. They have LCD monitors everywhere, everyone pays with their phone instead of credit card. I am considering moving back to China during the winter months of Toronto. I too read that book 'Mark Douglas's Trading in the Zone', best book I ever read and applies to me perfectly. As for my trading style, I am a mechanical trader. I have my secret set of indicators and my personal entry/exit rules that makes my trading almost non-discretionary. However the hard part is executing, and that I am practising intensely over the past few weeks. I have already done a great deal of back and live test and found my model to be very profitable. As for what I recommend to learn, I say learn Chinese, and how to start a business there. Instead of becoming a lone wolf master trader like all these "gurus" you see on Youtube trying to sell their courses. I am going to take my trading system and bring it to China where living and labour costs are cheaper, start a trading firm there and let these guys do the trading for me, over multiple future markets in different timezones. I think these young guys might execute the trades better than me, because they can follow rules better and have less emotions. Anyways, I'd be glad to chat with you off the forum. See if we can help each other. Leon
Hi Shi Fu, from your English style, I speculate that you are also of Chinese background. I seen your posts and I know you have done a great deal on ML and algo trading and are already hugely successful. I respect you a lot. I can't automate it right now because the indicators I use are not free and are contained within their own software which I have to pay and lease, I can't output its signals into a text format where I can process. However, the trading process is pretty mechanical and I can teach anybody to do it as long as they have fast reflex and can think/act quickly. The software has been around publicly for 20 years and nobody know about it. I won't say too much I don't want others to erode my edge. It only has less than 20k users and not everyone day trades. Funny thing is the maker of the software is also an America educated PHD Chinese person living in the US. However I would be glad to talk to you privately about what I use and see what you think of it.
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation on all 4 choices!...although now I'm very apprehensive/demotivated in starting any of the mentioned options lol.
That's a good thing. Consider your options. Write them down on paper, walk away for a week, and see what sticks out. You have the intelligence to do what you want. Just don't waste it. If you choose the CS route I can help you insofar as I can walk you through some the hardest parts. If you choose the MBA route your path is cut and dry - old hat for you. If you choose to do accounting you might need to brush up on your credits and debits but you stand to make good money anyway. The choice is yours. Unlike most people I strongly disagree with the "learn to code/get a CS degree path" despite having one of my own. Play your cards how they're dealt. You can do this.