Very few on here actually trade and very few of those who actually trade make money. I suspect a vast majority of those on here are wage slaves for whom frequenting ET is the closest thing to the real freedom they yearn for. To find how many on here make money trading, a good approximation would be 1% of the 70K members , which equals approx 700. Yes, there are some very large profitable traders who post on here from time to time. I won't give you their handles, you'll have to find them yourself. Why do traders post? many reasons. Boredom, paying forward etc. For me it's mostly for the comedy.
economics BS will be worthless for short term trading. if you go to a good school with professors that have market experience it might be a rewarding experience as far as valuation, portfolio theory, ect., long term buy and hold/value. i had just started back on an econ BS this semester to have something for when i blow my account up learning this dangerous game. Switching to accounting for next semester though because the professors have never done anything outside of teaching and the classes are a total waste of time.
To the OP, I'd wager that econ is an excellent degree for trading on all time horizons <b>if</b> you learn some of the quantitative techniques that economists use. For the most part, it seems only grad students in econ really get their hands sufficiently dirty in this for it to be useful, but if you make a point of it, you can certainly do it undergrad. Although I'm far from a master quant trader, I'd say that practical competence in time series analysis and multivariate statistics would go very far in getting you a trading job or helping you trade on your own.
I too received an economics degree, but it was a BA and not a BS. The BS degree in Econ was just being established when I was finishing up, and while one of my professors encouraged me to be a guinea pig for it, it would have involved petitioning and so I did not go with it. I find the Macroeconomic course of study to be a great foundation for any business venture, and think it prepared me well to look at the big picture and use the some of that information I gained to make better trading decisions. Micro might be better suited for analyzing individual companies, but that never interested me (nor do individual companies). It also just so happens that I had a minor in psychology, and I found the combination of the two to be great preparation for the finance world. I don't know what your future aspirations are, but I would suggest following whatever academic passions you have and going with those, and if you think you know what it is that you want to do/trade, throw yourself into that and make sure you enjoy it as much as you think you will now. It may also be that you will find a great professor at the next level who will influence you into pursuing some new course of study you have not yet contemplated (as happened to me with Econ). I would suggest a BS in Econ over a BA as the science aspect should add more quantitative learning which should suit you well in trading. While there are undoubtedly a lot of ET members who no longer trade (or perhaps never did in some cases), I am not the cynic or pessimist that some previous posters have been, and think that there are many a successful trader here who come for the conversation with others in this relatively small field, and come to share ideas...I think a lot of good advice has been offered on this thread.
If you want to be a trader tell your parents you are using your tuition money for a different kind of school. If you lose 100K in two years trading in whatever style you choose isn't for you. Start over by taking out student loans and focus on something else. IMO college is the biggest freaking scam since religion.
As many have mentioned, economics degree has done a lot to broaden the spectrum of understanding. Especially in macroeconomic events, you are able to understand the details that many can not grasp. Many seem to be criticizing it, but it would be interesting to see what education they have.
I will give my 2cents. I have learned much much from reading books in a half year timeframe than my 10+ class in econ that took 3 years.
same here...and I didn't even go for econ or anything of the sort... College IMO in this day and age can teach you who you really are, as you are on your own...make you think and realize how things really work in the world. At least it did to me. Alas it was a bit over-liberal where I went so that didn't help Beyond that...yep. Bureaucratic scam. Especially the big institutions where you're treated like a corporation as a number, not a name...trying to carve your own little niche.