Not one person mentions the almost obvious health side effects (mostly applicable to full time scalping). I dunno, to some people, money is worthless if you can't have your health.
wow Mike805, very good post.. you really got me there, it's true im not decided on career, and haven't worked for a corporation.. and you're right i don't know the business aspect of trading fully.. maybe there is more to trading than mere speculation and how it fits in as a career helpful comments thanks
I assumed you were talking about day trading because of previous posts you wrote. Anyway to answer your question... To me it's pure passion, I love it, wouldn't want to do anything else. It's the challenge of building a system or systems that are consistently profitable. Being extremely disciplined, it's you against yourself. I would trade the rest of my life if I was only making 50k a year.
i met a head of a trainee program last year in london, she said she regularly found new trainees crying in toilets because they couldn't cut the ice.. eventually they'd have get rid of some of them by end of year. to be successful at trading certainly isn't easy. but rather back-testing stock prices, one can learn alot from other's perspectives and 'strss-test' the career path for others.. in my view trading is certainly no 'normal' job.
If you treat it as a job then you can make it work....just like anything else, if you have focus, you can do just about anything.
I currently trade equities & futures full time. I am an Electrical Engineer by education and profession. I have not been overly active in the EE field for a couple of years now, I still do occasional consulting work with my former company though. I was fortunate to make a substantial amount of money during and after schooling from my engineering pursuits (dot com era stuff). Around 96' or so I became active in the markets and in '03 I went full time. With respect to question 2: A) Get the most education you can, plan to get a Master's when you start college. For starters, really focus on your grades in college and choose a demanding science based major. I choose engineering because it was difficult and I knew a lot of people couldn't make the cut in my program (less than 20% made it from freshman year to graduate, most went to ECON or Pysch). This in itself appealed to me, I tend to thrive on competition. IMO, engineering is a challenging and rewarding discipline that will allow you a skill set that applies across multiple career paths. In any case, an engineering degree combined with confidence will get your foot through a lot of doors at I Banks, engineering firms, big corps, MBA programs etc. B) Secondary but just as important - while in college, develop an emotional intelligence, an EQ ( Look this up on the internet). Go to parties, socialize, get wasted with buddies, bond with classmates, meet girls, have good and bad relationships, go through all the ups and downs of being a well rounded individual -learn what makes you tick and how you effect other people. Learn public speaking and polish your presentation. Find your weaknesses and find out why you have them. Are you overly sensitive? Do you have a insecurities about yourself? All your insecurities come out whether you like it or not, usually at the worst times. Be honest with yourself. No matter what anyone says, what you look like speaks volumes. Healthy looking people appear confident, confidence in itself will get you hired. I can usually tell if someone is worth anything within 2 minutes of meeting them. How? Hand gestures, posture, how they express themselves, the words they choose to use. Learn to be an active observer in social situations, take note of the people who have these skills and those who do not. I can almost guarantee a correlation between those who land good jobs out of school and those who go back to live with their parents.
That's not what I meant, stress from making the cut is common throughout the financial sector. For example, I think the health side effects of I-banking is worse than trading. Stress is everywhere. I'm just saying, being glued to the screen for hours watching tick by tick is not something the human body was designed to do. I know from personal experience that there are side effects as I felt certain positive physical & physiological changes when I stopped daytrading. These are short term side effects. Now I'm very health conscious, most are not, but there are long term side effects without a doubt. Eyesight & nervous system are the first to get hit. I've also felt a bit of ADD. The worst was the inactivity and lethargy and I'm quite vain in the looks & physique department so it was another factor. Everyone handles it differently, but I know for a fact that there are detrimental effects from staring at a computer screen with such focus and concentration. I think screen trading tick by tick has the highest concentration & focus among all the computer related jobs, it's almost like a stranglehold by the tape. There is currently research available showing the health side effects of computer programmers from being stuck to the screen for hours for years. I'm sure these are even more applicable to traders.