I almost forgot. If you go into a retail wirehouse, firm, etc., and want to sell ind. equities, you will go broke faster than you'll imagine! The days of making $5,000/day back in the early 80's selling, and buying stocks is gone, gone, gone. For example, the average ind stock trade transaction back then would have made you a commission of average $385-800. Now it can be done by anyonw with a computer for $7-9... It's products or advisory accounts these days, or you'll not make it in retail.
I have mixed emotions about my econ degree. On one side I get completely bored with Adam Smith and pals and other old crap like that(even Keynes is outdated, who would of known?) but on the other side I had some great teachers who showed me where the economic theories are TODAY. Believe me almost anything that starts with neo-classical is crap. The concept of markets is good but you need to understand more. I allude it to someone who looks at the stock market and sees 'randomness'. That's how neo-classical economists are. They look at the economy, can't understand it so they say it's the 'magic' of the market. And then they advocate lower regulations, transaction costs. (although Austrian school advocates same thing...) Economics is just too complicated to learn anything with an undergraduate. If anything it got me interested in trading.
some people never become profitable, some do after a bit, and some are profitable from day 1(of course after paper trading). Getting a CFA is a waste of time, you will learn 10x more by being active in all aspects of the market. Office jockeys like a financial analyst get CFA's. I have a degree in finance and an MBA and what I learned in school doesn't even compare to what I've learned in my career as a trader. Best bet if you want to be a trader is start with your own account, work a job where you can trade your own account actively,build it up and leave your job once you're doing good.......the two things that have helped me the most is using a screen recorder and setting realistic incremental goals to slowly improve, such as when i first started my goal was to make 1k a wk and now is 12k a wk.
well i trade only about 1/2 the yr since the summers are usually slow and 12k a wk is my goal to reach, so i'm not quite doing that yet.
I read the posts in this thread. The folks that make up the financial industry are people who "fit into" the system. For about 50 years I have had to train my contacts in the industry to get done what I want done and when I want it done. I always give them permission to coattail trade me if they wish to for their clients. They generally go beserk when I am cited by the SEC but they do get it in gear to correct the mistakes of the SEC after a moment or too. You went to school and at some point got an idea. Now for nine months you are interviewing to become something that has caught your eye and "interests" you. If you want to trade then sit down with a sheet of paper and draw a picture of what you do to trade. Use a 10B HP or equivalent calculator to rough out how money works when a trader is using it. Include the comment that one person made which says he went from 1k a week to 12 k a week and he works 1/2 of the year. Add to that some of the content of a debriefing (2 hours) that I did yesterday with three TRADERS. Among other things we spoke of the first part of Wednesday which followed the action on Tuesday (I debreifed them on that as well). We dicussed the fact that the extraction on the first hour of the market (ES) was running at 1 point a minute per contract for about an hour. With their particular competence level I insist that they apply profits to contracts and keep those contracts rolling in the market. They can take out money on Fridays and leave in the market 54 contracts of margin to start the next Monday. Lets say cashmoney66 got on a plane and was allowed to bring his 10B to the debriefing meetings and also he has a crayola and is handed an enlarged chart of the first hour of trading. We are helping him move the crayola in a slow up and down motion until he comes to 200 dollars of crayola distance on the chart by moving the crayola along the bars from open to extremes to close and on to the next open. It is a large blown up chart that he is going to frame and hang on the wall opposite the toilet if his mommy lets him. He is doing a point a minute on a five minute chart. 200 hundred dollars (1K a week) a day is where he will stop because he thinks 1k a week is something acceptable for a trader to accomplish in a day. He gets most of the way through ONE bar and sees his daily goal is met. We let him go on because he is still trying to learn to hold the crayola effectively. You are watching and you see this from a four years of college point of view where few crayolas were used to deal with market charts in financial labs you took. You can see that four bars out he has made the 1k for the week. The task turns to figuring out how much is earned in an hour at 1 point a minute that is showing on the charts. Will it be the crayola or the 10B that gets the answer? 60 points is 3k which is not the 12k needed for the week. The question is whether there are going to be 12k worth of points in the week. One contract was running and 2,000 dollars of capital was the margin. When you make 40 points do you exit and reenter immediately with 2 contracts? If you do, then at the end of the hour you can exit and renter with three contracts since you have 80 points instead of just the 60 points one contract would have made. So we know from now on we will exit every 40 points add another contract and stay in the market peeling off crayola points as the day goes by. To see this we ask cashmoney to use a different color for each contract he is adding each time 40 points are accumulated. This is advanced crayola. I know that cashmoney66 doesn't see how the markets work. Could he use a box of crayolas an blown up charts for a couple of weeks to see that 1k a week is nothing. That making 12k a week is an easy task IF he keeps using the crayolas. He can scan these in color and send them to trader666, virgin, tazboy, and associated others who may have color printers and walls opposite toilets and permissive mothers. I cut off the T&S at 50 contracts so I do not have to look at chicken feed going through the markets. You have four years of college. The 5 minute ES chart says you can pay for your education on Monday of every week. Why would anyopne whatsoever go to work for the financial industry when they can go to work for you as soon as you train them up? Why interview when you just need 5k to start trading one contract using a crayola? And get a 35 dollar 10B while you are at it. Imagine getting a PC and a couple of screens and setting the screens up so you can see the markets. If the crayola is a stumper for you. Get a couple of vids from Senters and play 2nd hook on the $TICK after you put in R and S after synch. Do Carter bicycles. Do pound the rock for over 3x H-L every day. I gave virgin 6 or 8 examples to search. Look them up. Find the chat button to push and be a copycat . the purpose of the financial industry is to do what we tell them to keep our accounts rolling and making the potential that the market offers. Look at the zig zags on the chart. One four point bar a day is 1k a week on ES with one contract rolling. 2,000 dollars of margin capital. What do you think keeps crayola in business????
Start with the end in mind. What is your objective from a career/wealth point of view. Until you get that sorted out in your mind you will remain confused.