I'd have to agree. It doesn't matter how well you do in prop daytrading, it gets no respect from nearly all HR people/companies. If you can take a good FA job, that will serve you well later, while trading will always be there.
I agree with all the others about you should take the FA job at MS. Just for the fact that they are a genuine name and you WILL learn something there. You say that guys do it in their 40's, yeah because they may have been successful and lasted for that long, but no way does a 40 year old get taken on as a trainee. In any prop shop your life expectancy as a trainee will be very limited, and the chance of success is far less than at a place like MS. Besides prop trading firms are all desperate and will take you whenever so long as you have no prior experience in prop trading, they want to hire people who may turn out to be hidden gems not try to develop struggling or re-mould failed prop traders. Prop trading will always be there in the future, they crave new blood all the time. You want a salary and training so take the FA job, where the contract will be crystal clear; banks don't have non-compete clauses because they are well run and don't need to do business like that. If you want to trade prop then go for futures, day-trading stocks is considered a mugs game even by the bad prop futures shops. At least as a former prop futures trader you would be able to say that you traded derivatives so would get more kudos from potential employers who have no knowledge as to what the job is really like. Whereas everyone, even the public, seem to have contempt for people scalping individual stocks by buying dips etc which really is considered brainless gambling. At least the top futures traders know what they are doing, LOL, and can make money in all markets not just when the Nasdaq was soaring!!! Don't be fooled about prop futures either though. You will learn nothing from any of those firms and will be teaching yourself regardless of what they tell you in the interviews. The fact that all risk managers are failed traders at prop shops says it all, top traders trade themselves and wouldn't take a boring job like watching others trade and stopping them out when they break limits or lose too much. Then those risk managers double up as trading coaches, which is a joke as they usually know nothing, and if they did couldn't apply it themselves; at best. That is of course the business model at all the prop places I know of in London. Don't think that you will learn from them, you teach yourself and if you make it they will say that you responded to the tuition well and so steal the credit, they always say that failures never listened and that is why they failed. Well in my experience it is the opposite, the guys who do exactly as they are told and stick to the advice they are given fail for that reason, the advice is shit. They are lead to their deaths like lambs to the slaughter, as they take advice from those who shouldn't be dispensing it to begin with. All the best prop guys I know ignored the so called prop gurus over-seeing them and legged spreads etc to be successful, they still traded smart but they ignored all the BS and hindsight advice. My old boss used to teach people to buy and sell bollinger bands, well those who listened failed and those who did their own thing and ignored him usually made it so long as they were disciplined about it. As showtime said he had to unlearn unhelpful tuition for himself in order to be successful. The problem is that nobody wants to be just a risk-manager and given that you will be new and they in charge they will expect you to listen. As has been said before all prop shops do is provide the infrastructure and financing, and maybe a salary. If you were taken on and trained by a successful trader then that would be different as then you would learn to trade properly by someone who COULD do it and could explain why. But all these graduate prop deals for newbie are sink or swim. That is why I recommend the FA job as they will actually have something to teach, but then they operate under different conditions. By the way ALL IBs etc think prop shops are boiler-rooms so you will close doors on yourself. Whereas after broking prop shops will still take you. The choice is yours! As for saying GHCO had a nice office, so what!! It is the other things like the contract, management attitudes and bonus structure that counts; at least at MS this will all be clearly defined. And MS will have a far nicer office than GHCO for a fact, they are a big investment bank after all and spend lavishly on their image, all marble entrances etc. Weigh up all the advice and if you get called back by the prop shops ask all the questions you can. Especially ask about tuition as that seems to really matter to you, if they say it is a confidential secret system that works or any shit like that then run as it will no doubt be BS, they should at least tell you what they use Market-Profile etc even if they chose not to tell you how they use it they should at least give you a rough idea as to what they base their trades on. If they say working edges then again run a mile as that way of trading futures died about 3 years ago, LOL, and yet some places are still trying to unsuccessfully trade that way and still haven't learnt to evolve!! Goodluck and keep us all posted on your job search.
good advice. i've been told that IB's don't like arcades. But what about quality prop shops like CTC or DE Shaw? my plan is that if prop trading is no good, i'll enroll in a math fin program. I've seen a few resumes and accepts of people who did this, and they got into name brand programs (academic admissions don't seem to know the difference between E-Trade prop and a place like Mako. As far as an FA position, yeah, they take you when you are old. In fact, the most popular brands prefer you to cross over from a previous profession so you can build a client list from that. Most were lawyers or people in another business. I think i'm going to start another thread about employment cross-over. That is, whether people found it hard to get past HR because they were prop traders, or because they had a poor background (education barrier, lacking a big name, flat out wrong profession, ect.) Thanks for the advice.
Listen you need to realize what a FA is. It's just a fancy term for broker and bottom line that it is just a salesman job. Yeah they try to fluff it up with insurance selling now but it's just a broker and it is tougher than it has ever been. Mom & pop aren't touching these markets. You need to decide what it is you want to do cause brokers, especially the more successful ones know nothing about trading. That said, the training programs for FA at the big banks are respected but at the same time, they will hire even non college grads to do these jobs. Run them in, use them up, if they cant hack it, kick them out. If you do not believe me, check out on Morgan Stanley at their non metro offices. You will learn some stuff, I've interned at the Merrill Private Client Group in NYC, I've read the manuals as well as learned a lot. The more you put into, the more you will get out of it. You can get the names on your resume and it is way way way better than even successful trading at a prop shop but only morons would not realize that being an FA does not mean very much. I really do not know about where it could get you, American Express is ALWAYS hiring for FAs, what does that tell you about the competitive factor when it comes to getting the job. So decide what it is you really want to do. Im assuming getting an assistant job at a hedge fund has been rough for you. Futures prop or stock prop, it don't matter, there is nothing special about trading "derivatives" when the whole game consists of the pit traders and big players whipsawing the small undercapitalized retail traders and slowly bleeding them to death. Trading prop shows independence and self-sufficiency, not at all attractive to corporates, hence the I-bank hate. Plus the understable premonition of daytrading being gambling. But with Merrill's current deal with Echo, it seems that the big firms are recognizing the growing business of trading, at least from the commission standpoint. Mom & pop aint there to churn anymore with $25 a trade and fees on the account. A successful track record as a self trader already gets respect at some hedge funds, and even the pompous monkeys at the I-bank sales desks cannot ignore the obvious skill, consistency & success of some "boy plungers" in the prop world. Finally, I gotta say that if you make it as a broker, it is the best f**king job in the world (excluding movie/music stars of course). Otherwise, it is one of the worst.
thanks for the advice. I actually use the term broker when explaining to friends. I don't actually use the FA or FC description much, only so that everybody knows what i'm talking about...everybody seems to be a consultant these days. The decision wasn't really about which would help me in terms of trading. It was more of a question between which job is better to take, absolutely. I felt like the FA position was safer because like I said earlier, the hardest part about being a broker is getting clients. I agree that the barrier to entry for a FA is pretty low...and if it was such a great job, everybody would do it....the only catch is that the failure rate is high. That is what is intriguing about this FA position...the client book is already full, so FA's are being hired on to maintain the book, not to prospect or find more clients. This MS group is forming a team, not hiring solo brokers. So on top of the 2 years of paid training, it looks like a promising start. I've heard that good SB brokers make about 400k a year after being in the biz for 10-15 years. The only downside to going the FA route is that I feel prop trading at a good place with a salary won't be an option....i'll be too old to recruit. An arcade might take me on, but not a place like CTC. I feel like being a broker will always be there in the future...(maybe not this particular team setup though) but a salaried trading position will not be there when i'm 30. So what do you think? And why do you feel that a broker's life is a good one, granted he/she is good at it?
In response to Kamikaze's comment about risk managers, I think as a newbie thinking about joining a training program in trading, one of the most important questions to ask is if the person that will be training you has been a successful trader doing exactly what you will be doing. The problem I had with my risk manager/trainer was the fact that he had an impressive trading background but it was all institutional and he never day traded in his life. The guy was no doubt definetely smart and definetely knew what was going on in the markets but the advice and training he gave was more based on his institutional experience. And as most day traders will say, you will get smoked if you trade solely from a institutional/long term/fundamental perspective especially if you have tight stop loss limits that most prop firms strictly enforce. The guy wanted us to trade off higher highs, lower lows, bollinger bands and thought that we should be in the market from bell to bell. All of these lessons, I had to eventually unlearn. Trading from bell to bell? Absolutely the worst advice for a day trader. My current risk manager, has been day trading futures for ten years and still currently trades while also managing. Just based on that fact, he understands what we are going through and in turn is much more supportive and helpful then some guy who traded at Goldman/Merrill/MS, etc. In regards to why being a good FA might be a better lifestyle than a good prop trader, in my opinion it is mainly because of the stability. Once you build your client base and achieve success as an FA, you are pretty much assured a steady stream of income while as a prop trader, the markets are constantly changing so there is no guarantee, no stability that for example you will make 20k each month. You may make a million one month, but you can also lose a million the next.
I hate to be curt but for the love of god man make a decision. You have peppered this board with question after question and the reality is that every single person on here has different experiences and you will recieve different views from all. You are young and this is your first job out of school we are not talking about nuero surgery here it is trading. Find a place that seems like a good fit and go with it. The goal of a young trader is to learn as much as you can. I would bet the vast majority of traders have been at different places and been stuck in bad deals, met crappy people and bad teachers but that is life. 85% of an organization is what you make of it. Non competes arent worth the paper they are written on so just make a choice. No one will come after you if you leave a place mid way through a 5 year contract if you go about it the right way. If you are an ass about it and burn bridges people will come after you.
kamdoo, when you said "FA" i thought you meant financial analyst. my mistake. forget it. don't be a broker. i know so many guys that failed after few years. trading is where it's at if that's your desire. like the previous post, make up your mind and dive in. that's the only way.
that was my first thought also but i knew it didn't fit with what they were saying. i guess the brokerage industry can no longer use the misleading title of financial consultant. and i also agree, brokers suck.
sorta what i was thinking....sh** or get off the pot. if this decision is so hard then i hate to see you trying to get out of bad trades. and quit referring to equity firms as arcades.......... no one on the equity side uses that.