Hi there guys, my names Jonny and Im in my final year at uni and need some advice and brutal honesty. I am studying Ancient History, and I am looking at achieving a 2.1, so a pretty average student. However, I have worked as a chef and with a bookie during Royal Ascot, so very busy environments, and have thrived in the atmosphere. I really want to trade derivatives of types, but I am finding it difficult to get companies to even take me seriously. So far the only firm to sound interested is a prop firm. So I could do with knowing what the difference is between prop trading, broking and trading, and which are harder to get into, responsibilities etc. Would it be worth me trying to get into the back office, or would I find myself being overlooked all the time? What do you think my best option would be, which companies would I be best talking to? Sorry if all this sounds like a lot but because trading is quite a closed environment it's hard to get good answers from my careers department. I have attached my CV, incase anyone knows someone looking for a grad. Cheers everyone, Jonny
FormGuide Well I like to dump on each and every ill-equipped, dumb, half baked newbie who turns up with a ridiculous fantasy and no prospects whatsoever in reality. They just keep coming and never stop arriving. And you? Do you know that ultimately you have to become a top problem solver to crack the conundrum of trading success and ultimately become one of the few who can turn the market into your own personal cornucopia?
You should be a funny man at a bar - no serious trading firm will consider you. If they do and its publicly traded, please let me know, so I can short their shares! Brutal enough? I'm not kidding either. I am guessing you cant get a job as a history teacher and thats why you're posting.
Save up a thousand bucks and trade it while you work a McJob. Read everything on trading you can find on the internet, but don't trust any of it until you can prove it works for yourself with a trading simulator. If you are good, after a couple years you'll be able to quit your McJob and trade full-time, making the same money. If you get better, you'll start making more than you did at your McJob, and if you're really smart, you'll end up ruling the financial world and everyone else here will feel like idiots and will start kissing up to you and saying "I knew him when...". But just so you know: unless you like getting kicked in the crotch ten times a day by a large angry ex-con, which is the closest related career to trading I can think of, it might not be for you. The only difference is that the large angry ex-con (the market) takes $20 bucks or more in payment from you every time he bags you. It continues until you figure out how NOT to get bagged or until you black out from the pain and put that History thing to use.