If I were 25 and read what I had wrote, I would have totally agreed with your opinion that I come across as a defeatist. I remember being a kid, and my dad would resign himself to things, and it always used to piss me off...I'd think/say "fight this thing harder." So I get where you are coming from....generally speaking, I have the same attitude towards life. I love all the Rocky movies, I love the story of the underdog founder, Rudy, etc. But unfortunately, as life goes on, there are realities that I cannot avoid....somewhere in the USA right now there is a .260 hitter in the minor leagues, who if he could just get his batting average up to .290, he will get that call to the majors....and for whatever reason, that is not going to happen for him, no matter how hard he tries. And that's kind of where I feel like I am at....which in a sense is very easy to make one feel like this is a personal failure, and is quite depressing to think about...so I'm choosing to view this more as a business failure...I have the willingness, the work ethic, the desire, I just happened to choose the wrong business venture to try to support myself from. I need to now regroup, get my capital right, and find the next business venture where I have a better chance at success. If this was a matter of trying, desire or tenacity, I really feel like I would have been successful already.
I was never a fan of “ systems”, they usually fail. Strategies are better. They are vastly different.
Hey Steve. If you are willing to study for actuarial exams on your own and invest a total of ~2500 hours passing them (about 1/3 of which will be company paid time off), the actuarial route may be great for you. You need a Bachelor's degree, usually a GPA of 3.6+ in the subject you got your degree in, and then you can apply for an internship with 2-3 exams passed. With not being straight out of school and having experience in something financial, you would start a notch higher than the rest in terms of getting that first internship. If you do well there, you're in. It's a long road, but I was a career changer, never went back to school, relied on my degree and ability to self study to get into an internship, got the full time from there, then got free 6-7 weeks a year of study time. Once you are credentialed you usually don't work much more than 40 hours a week and make a significant amount of money. Not for everyone, but with your background I thought it may make sense if you like to access risk. Newly credential actuary I assume is making 125K with bonus, but 10 years later, you should have another 100K on top of that (and 40-45 hours a week). Some make even more. Just a thought. DW Simpson has a salary survey that is not exaggerated, if you are interested in the profession.
Hey, thank you for posting this suggestion. When I was young, one of my first obsessions was baseball player statistics. I think this is part of the reason I took such an interest in the financial markets, especially trying to quantify edges. I got really excited after reading your post and did a little research into actuarial exams, and stumbled across a learning resource and the moderator there said in the disclaimer "potential actuarial exam takers are expected to be very comfortable with Calculus 1-3".....this was a bit deflating to read. Unfortunately, that guy certainly is not me....but who knows, maybe with enough grit and determination I could tackle that as well and make it though. At least this would give me something that will push me to my limits, and maybe inspire me to become a better version of myself that I think it possible. Who knows.
Hmm... I wonder what the moderator was referring too. Most people that are actuaries took actuarial science as a major, which just basically taught them how to pass exams for 4 years. I'm sure the curriculum includes some calculus. The exams themselves have little calculus, as least when I took them, and most of the calculus that is on the exams is very basic and easy to learn. If you become an actuary, eventually you pick a track for the "upper" exams. You could choose the quantitative track and this has actual stochastic calculus proofs in it, which are pretty nasty, but few people take the track because it is so hard. The other tracks are mostly memorization and applying risk management. So you could avoid calculus by choosing an easier track, which leads to the same place, and most people choose that option. The exams require an enormous amount of study and are very difficult, but the calculus aspect I don't think would be a hurdle for you. The biggest issue is you get 30 questions that are multiple choice in 3 hours and it is extremely difficult to get some of the questions done in 6 minutes, as they requiring a lot of thinking and sometimes multiple steps. It requires someone to study very well, to concentrate very well, and to stay clear and not make mistakes under extreme pressure. Studying 300 hours for an exam and knowing a 3500 raise is on the line, increasing the anxiety as well. Failing it means putting off the next exam for several more months, which is a lower salary, requires at least another 100 hours in study as you'll forget a lot of it before the next exam, and is very discouraging as there are like 10 exams in total. So the work is enormous, but the payout is really good if you can make it through. Even ASAs can make 200k (ASAs stop halfway through because the upper exams are just too hard). The FSA exams (upper exams) are brutal. It's 6 hours of nonstop writing to the point I spent a few hours of exam prep on studying optimal handwriting for speed and brought like 4 different types of pens. Your hand cramps horribly and you can't write enough in 6 hours to complete it. You hope to get around 60% to pass, so smart people just decide in the read through to take advantage of those 15 minutes and plan which questions you'll barely touch, and really put detail into the ones they'll crush, as you only need 60% to pass. What makes them possible, is the massive adrenal flowing through your body. By the end of it I was in a lot of pain based on posture, etc. but was unaware of it during it. Just want to paint a true picture. If you have the passion to learn, are willing to put 300 hours of study into 3 preliminary exams each so you can get an internship, and then are comfortable doing some additional self study for a couple hours a night for multiple years (I'm addition to the free study time from the company), you get a great career with very little overtime and lots of money. I'd recommend looking at the preliminary exam examples that the SOA releases. Looking at true past exams or at least a sample of the questions you could get (as preliminary exams are computer based so the question vault is huge) would probably help you decide if you would do good with the questions and if you have the passion to learn. After 200 hours of study I got 50% on my first preliminary exam fake pretest. I was discouraged but ended up doing well on the exam just 100 hours of study later due to the fact you only need like 60% to pass anyway. Hope this helps and please reach out if you have more questions!!
Oh... It's kinda disappointing to hear that all your endeavor and all the experience you received went in vain and you haven't achieved the goal you set. Still, there is a ground to contemplate. It seems to me that you have transparent traits of burning out from trading and it's okay buddy. Surely, if you realize that you can't turn this into stable and primary income, then just combine trading with another occupation. Or, give it up as you have mentioned.