"Runner"...? "Floor"...? "Grains"....?How quaint. How so very 1985. Let's start by raising your sights just a little bit. Go to the DePaul Business Library. Go to the Bloomberg room. Fire up the Bloomie and type "JOBS" -GO-, and you'll find job-listings for everything from the odd entry-level floor-trading clerical-position to advanced Mortgage-backed & Exotic-Options Assistant Trader slots at $1billion+ Cayman hedge-funds. You're at a critical juncture, and a little initiative can go a very long way especially here, as most will advise you to aim for a floor trading gig, why not just shoot for the hedgies...? That's the ultimate destination for for floor-traders anyway (unless they're spectacularly-profitable floor scalpers, and most of those guys are either in the NYMEX pits trading crude or penning their memoirs from their tropical estates)... All trading firms are looking for someone with very sharp "street"-skills, for starters - but the big bucks (both starting, and down the line) are in throwing around someone-else's - bank or HF - money and, if you've played your cards well, starting out here is like getting an upgrade to First-Class at a discount-airline coach-class price. P.S. - if you're REALLY into the markets, don't just "say" it. Show it! Take Arditti's classes, (beg him if you have to) study EVERYTHING in those classes - put what you've learned on your resume (And No - the basic Econ course won't impress anyone, and is best left off. But an honors undergrad who's taken interest-rate- and options-arbitrage courses, hmmmm....) Edit: Also - avoid, evade and RUN away from any, each, every, and ALL "back-office" and "middle-office" jobs. I'd say more about this, but do not wish to offend...
Hello, Thank you for your post, I've found it very helpful. Working for a Hedge fund was something that really interested me a few months ago before I was turned off by hearing a lot about how they tend to only hire mathematicians and computer programmers out of Harvard. I also realized that even if I did land a job with a hedge fund, it probably wouldn't be directly with the traders and would probably take along time before I was even involved with the trading operations because of how secretive they supposedly are. Did you go to DePaul? I searched online and couldn't find a teacher at DePaul by the name of Arditti, nor have I been able too find information about where the business library is. Regarding back office jobs, that is what I'm trying to avoid. While I am completely open to starting off doing grunt work for the group, I also want to be interacting with the traders and learning. Thanks a lot for your help. Al Palmer.
A Palmer, Check your PMs. Also I believe he was referring to the Options course at DePaul which I suggest u take as well. I took it while there. There is also a Risk Management course but I had talked to the Professor when I thought about taking it and he told me it was not very useful for trading. BTW, hedge funds do not only hire "quants" from Harvard, at least that is not the case in Chicago. You really just need to get your resume out to various prop firms and market making firms that are on the floor most nowadays have upstairs operations as well (not in the grains) I highly suggest u look as far out of the grains as possible. Unless you are a relative to a broker or a big local in the grains there is no real opportunity to trade. Ive been down that road before. You just need to make some contacts with traders who are around the bot, stray away from the runners and clerks. How old are you? You have been clerking for 8 years and are only now trying to make the transition to trade?
"runner", become well-versed in coffee runs, lunch tastes, frequent runs from building to building if offices not near the floors. Fetch the most inane objects. Prepare to be yelled at and even humiliated. As far as getting your tasks done, if you are early you are on time, if you are on time you are late and if you are late forget about it. Make or break you.
Urkel, Thank you for your help. I will start looking around the financial room. Would you suggest just asking people high in the desks? Any suggestions about where to start in that room? How willing are many of those desk managers to take the time and offer advice? I know a lot of traders in the pits, however so far have had almost no luck looking for a small trading group by asking them. My take is that pit traders know an incredible amount of other traders, however don't know much about the upstairs trading groups. Again, one of the most important things to me is to find a small group with a tight network of traders. I do not want to go through some generic trading course and be thrown in a room with 100 screen traders. Thank you. I am 21, I started clerking on the floor during my 8th grade summer. Al Palmer
Business Library, 10th floor, DePaul Center.... By Arditti, I mean Fred Arditti, the guy who invented the Eurodollar futures contract The classes I was referring to are the Fin 590-something Fixed-Income, Swaps, Mortgage-Backed Securites, and Options series (there are, I think 3 classes total) usually reserved for MSc-Finance/MBA students, though Honors undergrads may attend (only with his permission, IF you have all the prereqs - he is very, very VERY strict about this, so find out from your advisor and take the prereqs before enrolling, or he'll just kick you out) I think there is one Statistics and two Calculus prereqs - though you ought to check first.... They're the toughest Finance courses at DePaul (he's taught the very same ones at UofC, Harvard and MIT, so the guy just might know a thing or two....) and he routinely FAILS 50-70% of the class (even the MSc-Finance ones) EVERY CLASS, so be prepared... Why...? Because if YOU were interviewing two candidates to hire one as a trader, which stands out more: the one who has experience as a runner and is eager to trade, -OR- the one who has experience as a runner, is eager to trade AND can bootstrap a yield-curve on the fly, evaluate an option using a probability-tree based upon an existing price and a simple binary-probability and understands how the repo-market can drastically affect the Treasury basis (something a few veteran bond-traders woke-up to find themselves on the losing side of last summer!)...? In a world increasingly-dominated by "black-box"-style algorithmic-trading, which is the more valuable candidate to the firm, ceterus paribus...? Think about it. Don't worry about the "mathematics" and "Harvard" screens: if you follow my advice (and, heck, even take a few C++ programming & logic courses as electives, if you want - they're offered by DePaul too, you know) you already look better than a good chunk of your trader-trainee candidate rivals, without barely even trying....! As far as secrecy, different firms have different corporate-cultures, I was lucky to have worked in my formative years at a couple of firms, both of which recruit from DePaul, that have more open cultures; other are more closed - you'll have to find the one that suits your style, and will hire and teach you.... As you may have guessed, yes, I went to DePaul... Also - a number of the firms mentioned in this thread also recruit from DePaul for their trader-trainee programs or are receptive to resumes from students of the school, so check with the career-center and also with the Computer, Telecom, and IT school at DePaul for leads.... Good Luck...!
Good thread. I'm 25 and am working near Chicago as a computer programmer and I'm looking to get into trading... I'm looking for prop shops that provide training, etc. Thanks.
"As you may have guessed, yes, I went to DePaul..." Another teacher I would love to sugggest is Manifoli (sp) if he is still there. He taught alot of the futures and options classes when I was there. The guy is crazy smart and you can learn a ton from him. I remember he said he was a consultant for GS for sometime. Always told stories of developing crazy options strats for big time Tech company CEO's who were locked into stock that they couldnt sell before the bubble burst. These were the hardest classes I ever took at De Paul. Other easier teachers taught the same classes, but the working knowledge this guy taught was worth every bit of difficulty.