Hi. My name's Thadius Main, I'm a 15 year old high school student, and I have a passion for the stock market. Always have. Started reading the Wall Street Journal in 6th grade. For a while now, I've been considering a career involved with the stock market - broker, trader, investment banker, that kind of thing. But, I'm still not 100% sure it's for me. I was looking for some answers to a few questions, if you can answer any of them. 1. This may seem like a weird first question, but bear with me - how's the math in trading? Does the career require a genius mathematical mind, able to do long division in a quick mental flash, or is a decent, basic grounding good enough? 2. What kind of education is needed? Do you have to graduate from business school, is a position as a big broker at Goldman Sachs only available to Ivy Leagues? And what kind of courses should I be looking for in High School, then in College? 3. As a stock trader, are you allowed to invest yourself? It seems like, if you were the one ordering the buying or selling, it'd be illegal for you to take part in it. 4. How easy is it to climb the ladder in these kinds of careers? And where do you start, on average? That's what I can think of now. If you have any other info you think I should know, or any questions, please, let me know.
First off, welcome to ET!! 1. This may seem like a weird first question, but bear with me - how's the math in trading? Does the career require a genius mathematical mind, able to do long division in a quick mental flash, or is a decent, basic grounding good enough? To be a trader - not as much math as you think is needed to trade, you need to be quick and smart... no long division 2. What kind of education is needed? Do you have to graduate from business school, is a position as a big broker at Goldman Sachs only available to Ivy Leagues? And what kind of courses should I be looking for in High School, then in College? BA in finance is definitely a plus to get your foot in the door anywhere... masters helps obviously... CFA is great to have to get into bigger banks (you named Goldman, etc) 3. As a stock trader, are you allowed to invest yourself? It seems like, if you were the one ordering the buying or selling, it'd be illegal for you to take part in it. You can trade for yourself, absolutely. 4. How easy is it to climb the ladder in these kinds of careers? And where do you start, on average? You will always start low on the ladder... but hard work pays off obviously... That's what I can think of now. If you have any other info you think I should know, or any questions, please, let me know. .... You are definitely on the right track in your career... asking all the right questions... I'm sure you will find lots of help here. Cheers
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Being good at math is near crucial i'd say. It helps to be excellent at 7th grade math. Need to be able to do things like percentages super quick and things like knowing that $45 up from $30 is same at $63 up from $42. Fractions, percents and super quick addition subtraction of numbers like 15.75-1.18. middle school math helpful to be very fast. Finance is all math really so if you hate math, may not be the field for you. I remember taking Calculus 3 for fun in College as an elective and was a math geek for sure. This really helped me in my trading career. Not the calculus, but liking and being really good at math. All the stock market is really is a web of numbers.
Not saying I would recommend my path, as the amount of shit I've had to go through is unreal, and the amount of risk I've taken to get where I am - both financial, and more than that, risking being a total failure - I can't really recommend to anyone. While at this point I'm making more than I would with a graduate degree most likely, there is no telling what the future holds for me, or if next year, or the rest of this year, or next week, or three years from now, if a horrible event happens to me where I get stuck in a deer in headlight and blow through a year's worth of capital... if the stress will shorten my life so that it's not worth it. I can't tell you if my edge will die, and I'll take a massive rip and go on tilt for years and chase it. These are all potential realities if I don't keep my shit straight. With that said, I just turned 20, I have no highschool diploma (stupid of me, was a young kid who thought he knew it all). I'm an independent trader trading from home, been in the business about 26 months, built my capital up from pocket change. The only math I do is addition/subtraction. I mean I'll do division in the sense that... if I want to bid 7000 shares, and post it in 500 share increments, I'll have to remember to post 500 shares 14 times. But basic stuff. I do have a good mathematical mind, but I don't think it really applies to trading - maybe the part of me that's good at math is good at the numerical pattern recognizition involved in trading, but it's really honestly more the part of me that's good at video games. I suppose if you trade options more math is good but you can just use a black scholes calculator to do it for you. It's what you make of it. If you have the determination for it you can get there. I started when I first turned 18, fulltime trading at a prop firm. Do well in school and try to get into a good college. The path I took... while it at this point appears to be working for me, I would not recommend.
Glad you found ET, I wish there was an ET when I was starting out because believe it or not there is useful information on here, you just have to sort through a lot of crap to get to it. One thing I wish I could do over was to focus more on programming instead of wasting time with finance and econ. If you know what kind of trader you want to be (discretionary / systematic ) and who you want to work for (yourself/others) it will help determine the path you take. You mentioned the words broker and investment banker these parasites are not traders! Financial sales people are one of the million reasons this country is in the position itâs in now. But if you only want to trade and not âwork in the businessâ go to school for something that interests you and that may allow you to actually contribute to society. Oh yeah, buy every book you can find about behavioral economics. It has nothing to do with trading yet it has everything to do with trading. :eek:
Seriously, don't trade, unless you MUST. Start paper trading at your day job, because most traders don't start making a living wage right away. altho, if you can make it work, trading is by far the most independent and most rewarding way to earn a living... IMO You can be as dumb as a turtle and still trade better than 90% of the others... In fact, I would say lower IQ the better and less formal education...Why? Because you won't support illogical positions with "scholarly" economic data.. Stick to your system 99% of the time. -But first you must FIND what works for you...trial and error my friend... but maybe you can do the trial and error on paper trading instead of REAL dollars.