Yeah I get it... but the moderator just ripped through this thread and pulled out several posts, including at least one that didn't reference BoWo in any way or respond to him at all. WTF? Unacceptable.
Your post was a positive one for this thread as it was hopefully one that moves the conversation towards risk management. I don't see why it would get deleted??
Talon, How did you get your start programming? You said you didn't have a programming background so did you teach yourself? Where would be a good place to start?
Again... I'm just worn out after long days at the office... and the markets are more and more difficult going into the end of the year as volatility dries up. Funny thing is, the P&L is fine, but it just feels like we're working very hard and EVERYTHING is a fight and struggle these past few weeks... any trading mistake is punished brutally and immediately by the market. FML. Anyway... I do have a plan for this thread: 1. Looking at the systems I posted. I would actually encourage everyone to read BoWo's posts because there are good lessons here in how to evaluate systems. He's confused because there's a lot he doesn't understand... but in his confusion lie some good lessons for this thread. (And yes the little turd is going to freak out and respond all over this thread... just ignore him. AND MAGNA PLEASE DO NOT DELETE POSTS FROM THIS THREAD BECAUSE YOU SCREWED UP AND DELETED SEVERAL POSTS THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DELETED LAST NIGHT. 2. Risk management. I really think a trader's job is more risk management than anything else. The risk management questions are actually not well understood... and the answers are more "soft" than you would think. I don't have any special expertise in this field, but I have spent a lot of time (obviously) thinking about the problems and questions and am happy to share some of my thoughts. 3. The programming question. Again, I'm no expert, but I do think I am probably the worst programmer who gets the most done (albeit perhaps in the most inefficient ways). Will be happy to share my thoughts on the topic, and there are people here who can probably answer that better than I can. I see those as the most pressing questions for the forum. I will get to them soon. Sorry for the delay. Everyone please just ignore BoWo...
Hi Talon, you mentioned that one of your trainees had a background in fashion and zero finance training or knowledge. How did you find that person (or they find you) and what led you to hire them? I understand the desire for a blank slate and a critical mind but how do you decide who's worth your time if they have no track record (how did they even get an interview)? I've got a non finance background and up until a couple months ago I had zero knowledge of markets and I'm sure there is no way I could approach any firm and not get laughed out of the place. I feel like my only option is bullshit detecting and self teaching so your comments on your trainees have kind of blown my mind.
Hi Wutang, Wutang PM'd me this question and I asked him to post it to the forum because I thought it was relevant. People find me... I do not advertise in any way (quite the opposite). Early on I hired someone I met in an airport reading a trading book... you just never know. I have many friends who trade, many friends who know what I do, and a handful of people who have worked with me know what it's like firsthand. As I said in BoWo's thread, there are also a handful of people who either trade on their own or run their own small (by Wall Street standards) funds, so they also tend to push people to me. I do the screening pretty intuitively. I look for people with non-traditional backgrounds... I have especially found that people from extremely analytic backgrounds can get tunnel vision and sometimes don't make the best traders. On the other hand, critical thinking and analytic skills are important... even more important are certain personality characteristics. On average probably 20-40 people "apply" a month. I glance at every resume and talk to maybe 10 people a year and hire maybe 1 ever other year. I don't pay a competitive salary compared to a hedge fund or a bank, but I do pay a decent performance bonus... and most of the job is about you learning anyway... pretty much everyone who has worked for me has said they should be paying for the education rather than me paying them, which is probably true on some level. Realistically, the amount of money you're going to lose learning to trade + what I pay usually ends up being a VERY nice salary lol. As I also said elsewhere, I don't do this out of the goodness of my heart. That is one tiny part of it, but I have benefited from these arrangements far more than the money it has cost me to fund the learning curve. It is impossible to imagine the synergy of being in an environment where smart driven people do nothing but think about trading. The whole is truly more than the sum of the parts.
Time and time again either we or others have referred to this market as a trader's market. Investors who buy and hold have hopefully stopped looking at their portfolios, but for those willing to pay tax on short term gains there is money to be made.
Ok starting with #3, the programming question. First off, be clear I am not a programmer. If I started listing the dozen or so languages that I have programmed in you might disagree, but you would be wrong. As you probably know, real programming is a skill... there's a beauty and elegance to good code that you don't get unless you really focus on developing this skill (and have a certain amount of talent.) I know just enough about programming that I can understand some of the elegance of good code, and know that mine does not usually have that. However, I do have a logical mind and can lay things out in a very step by step fashion. This makes me pretty good at problem solving and very good at working with programmers. My solution has been to learn what programming I could so that I can mess around and do research on my own. When I have an idea at 2am that I can't get out of my mind, it's helpful that I can get up and write a little piece of code in 30 minutes to see if the idea is worth looking at or not. However, when something needs to really work (as in a high frequency system or anything automated) I go to someone who is a lot better at programming than I am. For someone starting out, I would encourage you to emulate that approach. 1) work with a programmer. Chances are you probably know a programmer who would be interested in markets and trading, or probably already is. You don't have to worry about them stealing your ideas because frankly your ideas aren't going to be that good! Haha... seriously though there is far too much focus on the internet about the "secret formula" and I can tell you there is no secret formula. Trading is about good risk management and basic understanding of markets. Focus on that not someone stealing your ideas. and then 2) you do need to learn to program. I'm sure there are people reading this forum who can give you better advice than I can. The usual advice is to start with BASIC, but I'm not sure that's great advice. Certainly a language like C (C++ etc) is not where you want to start and something object oriented in general probably is a hard place to start. I think R (which let me say again is available for free with good educational resources) is a language that is ideally suited to what we do and might provide a good starting point. Where you start, it's going to be a couple of years (assuming you focus and work hard) before you are good at this. There are no shortcuts to really developing the skills you need to succeed.