===Are there any (dis)advantages to working in NYC as a day trader? == IMHO there are no advantages. I personally would rather be in a different time zone, something like Arizona, since I wake up early and would rather start early.
Trading in Arizona is only a half day job here whereas in NYC I believe they stretch it out through the whole day for some unknown reasons. They also have a thing called snow in NYC. We restrict snow to the mountain ski areas here. Arizona is not on any cost of living lists since we do not have costs here; we use a border crossing thing instead for food and labor. Our version of Forex. We do not change times zones during the year either. Feeding time is feeding time year round; horses rule. Used mirage fighters are the toy of choice now that we have the lubricant crossovers straight.
u make me laugh. you are part of the herd of know nothings. did you try exploring the city or did you just go to tourist traps or some place recommended by your boss who lives on park ave. or on long island.
im sure you can find shitholes to eat, drink, or live in, but on the average everything is quite expensive..
we got a great bunch of people posting on this thread. some believe i have never been to new york and some believe i live in my parent's basement in new york.
I've been trading from NYC (Manhattan) for about a year now. NYC is very expensive and rents are crazy. I'm seriously thinking of relocating to Los Angeles (my firm has a few branches out there) due to cheaper cost of living, better trading hours (at least for me since I'm an early bird - I'll be done at 1 p.m. L.A. time), and warmer weather. I wouldn't recommend trading from NYC because there are much cheaper and nicer places to trade from - quality of life counts big time.