I, too, have gathered that a Financial Economics degree would be optimum. However, this degree is mainly offered at grad school stage. For undergrad, I've gathered you can't go wrong with the Economics & Mathematics or Economics & Statistics double major combinations. I've also heard that an Actuarial Science major with Economics minor is really setting new grounds in trading. Business degrees at an undergrad stage are just job placement programs, making them an utter joke. Not to offend any Wharton grads...
Have to go with the school of hard knocks as well. This is a psych game, all the alphabets in the world behind your name doesn't mean squat. In fact, it's probably a disadvantage.
When I majored in it, we were the first graduating class at Centre College to obtain the degree. At the time, I was told of 9 other undergrad financial econ programs. You are right that graduate level is usually where you see it. As long as you have at least two econometric courses with original research requirements, you may come out with the same skills as I had.
No degree in any subject is going to teach you risk management. Only in theory, maybe economics and statiscal probablility will help a little. Trying playing poker over at the casino with a set bankrolll and see how you manage your risk within a certain limit and if you are profitable.
May be true, but then there are those of us that like to backtest our strategies in order to manage our risk. Position sizing is primarily how this is done.
Philosophy, with an emphasis on logic and philosophy of science. Law, with an emphasis on financial and tax law. Forget anything that relates to statistics or quantative finance. The approach to the market that courses like those take are unable to surmount the problem of induction.
This is quite stupid. Like saying you can trade anything, and don't need to know squat about markets or financial theory. Just makes trading that much easier for educated traders and investors. The only real skill I've found to have a significant edge over others was programming. I know lots of financial professionals, but hardly any that have any idea how to program algorithms. Combine with STATA, SAS training and you're invincible, because you are prepared to analyze data intensively. Logic and philosophy are whimsical approaches. Kind of like the way the intro statistics class at the University of Kentucky was completely touchy, feely. This will not help you understand your investments, nor will it give you any technical edge. Financial Econ still rules, and I have not heard anyone with the degree speak up. Have you ever analyzed 6,000 observations with 33 variables? Probably not, and this will help you trade. It may not be a get rich quick path, but will always reinforce your rationale for the trades you make. <b>Anybody can trade for themselves with any degree, but that doesn't mean you should.</b>